


The New Asgard Necromancers

by Maker_of_Rune_Vests



Series: The Asgard Assassinations [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Attempted Murder, Cuddling & Snuggling, Cults, Domestic Fluff, Engagement, Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, Fantastic Racism, Fluff and Angst, Interrogation, Jotunn Loki (Marvel), Loki (Marvel) Feels, Loki (Marvel) Has Issues, Loki (Marvel) Needs a Hug, Loki Gets a Hug (Marvel), Loki is a Good Bro (Marvel), Murder Mystery, New Asgard, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Post-Canon, Post-Canon Fix-It, Protective Loki (Marvel), Reader has a cat, tw: discussion of suicide
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-29
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:55:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 17
Words: 31,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25585525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maker_of_Rune_Vests/pseuds/Maker_of_Rune_Vests
Summary: 2024, New Asgard. A bard and sleuth whose harp burned in Ragnarok and whose beloved, Prince Loki, has died thrice, you have become a tranquil though mourning folk-rock artist with an electric guitar in your hands and a cloak Loki conjured for you under your pillow.But you will now cease to be tranquil.Thor is absent; Asgardians are fatally falling from a precipice every Wednesday; and Loki has come back from the dead.Sequel to "The Asgard Assassinations."
Relationships: Brunnhilde | Valkyrie & Loki (Marvel), Loki & Sif (Marvel), Loki & Thor (Marvel), Loki (Marvel)/Reader, Original Female Character(s) & Reader
Series: The Asgard Assassinations [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1707523
Comments: 50
Kudos: 80





	1. Chapter 1

Half a dozen bouquets lie in the autumn-browning grass near the brink of the cliff from which Thyra Bosdottir fell last Wednesday. You drop to one knee and lean your white chrysanthemums against a group of grey stones. 

You sigh as you rise. Thrya’s death is the first horrible thing to happen in New Asgard in over a year. The Asgardians whom Thanos turned to dust were remade; the valkyrie Brunnhilde became king; Thor flew away, but with December of this year chosen for his return; and since then, everything has been peaceful. Nobody died between those events and Thyra’s fall, except one man who was 5,736. A baby was born to Lif and her husband Salvador Lopez, a lawyer who originally came to Norway to give the Asgardians  _ pro bono _ legal aid, and she has been hired to paint enormous, accurate murals in a history museum. And your first musical album (which your Midgardian business manager says is a “folk-rock album”) became a bestseller two months ago. But now, in October, Thyra, a young cook, has fallen.

Nobody knows why she fell. 

“May you take your place in the halls of Valhalla,” you whisper, tilting your head up to look at the golden sunset. Perhaps she was trying to see the ocean or the sky and slipped. Perhaps she jumped. Perhaps somebody shoved her. 

You are certain Hrist did not kill her; Hrist is free, but she was with Brunnhilde that day. You wish Brunnehilde did not favor her, but Hrist was a valkyrie (who resigned due to age before Hela killed them), and they spend much time together. Brunnehilde insists that Hrist has repented. 

You walk away from the precipice into the cold autumn evening, hands in the pockets of your long coat. It is called a trench coat, for reasons you do not know, and you wear it often. The green cloak Loki conjured for you is folded under your pillow in your cottage; you have not worn it since the day you learned that the titan Thanos had killed him. You do not want the only thing you have to remember him by to ravel. 

A bar of white fog appears ahead of you as the sun sinks, like a wall separating you from New Asgard. You walk towards it, muscles tensing a little in the cold breeze. You need to get home; the stew you have been simmering in your Midgardian slow cooking pot should be turned off, and you should revise the song you wrote yesterday for your second album. 

The fog surrounds you and silently besieges your coat, trying to soak into and through it. It wets your hair and dampens your face and boots. It eddies in the wind. You turn up your collar and begin to hum an old Elvish song about a world beyond a veil.

Oh. Through the greyness, somebody tall is walking towards you, somebody with a ragged cloak and unkempt hair, both long and dark and swirling in the wind. You can’t think of anyone in New Asgard so tall with such long, dark hair--and Midgardians in Norway almost never wear cloaks, let alone ragged ones. 

In your right pocket, you wrap your fingers around your pepper spray. “I wish you good evening,” you say formally, continuing to walk. The fog and his hair hide his face, though you can see that he is extremely pale. 

The stranger halts and stiffly tilts his head, and then takes a long stride toward you through the fog, raising his right hand to brush his hair away from his eyes. Your heart leaps into your throat as quickly as your mind is trying to leap to an unbelievable, glorious, confounding conclusion. 

A muted cough.

Loki whispers your name. 


	2. Chapter 2

“Loki!” you exclaim, your tone soft and bewildered, stepping toward him. Is he a spirit? Are you hallucinating or dreaming? Your trembling hands touch the threadbare cloth of his sleeves, the crumbling leather of his bracers--his hands, too thin, cold because the evening is nippy, but almost as warm as yours. You draw a shuddering breath of superlatively happy bewilderment and look up at him, hands moving to your sides. “You’ve come back again.” 

Loki regards you, his eyes hollow and still more pensive than they were thirteen years ago when he was a young prince watching a bard verge on accidental treason. “Have you been safe?” he asks, still whispering. 

_ Dropping your harp so you could carry one of the twins of a woman whose husband was an Einherjar Hela had killed. Asgard exploding. Speeding away from  _ The Statesman _ , realizing that Loki and Sighilda and Thor, the new king, and many multitudes were being killed. Brunnhilde roaring at thunderstruck Midgardian officials that she didn’t give a **** about their “immigration laws.”  _ “Safe enough.” At least as safe as any other Asgardian. You reach out again and touch his bracer, not daring to slip your hand into his. It’s been thirteen years since the last time you spoke, and he told you to forget him. “But Loki, how--” He coughs harshly into his shoulder, and your brows draw together. “You shouldn’t be out in the fog.”

“I’m not ill; the Titan broke my neck.” His tone is as matter of fact as if he had said, “I’m not ill; I mis-swallowed my water.” 

You knew Thanos killed him, but you did not know the details. How in the nine--eight--realms has he survived  _ that _ ?! You gather your scattered wits. Even if his cough isn’t from an illness, he isn’t healthy and he shouldn’t be out in the damp, cold night. “Will you be staying in the Hall?” you ask, referring to the wooden building from which Valkyrie reigns and lives and where Thor lived before he departed to live in a cottage with two Sakaarians. 

Loki tries to shake his head and flinches. “My brother is absent, or so Brunnhilde says. And I will not beg hospitality of her. Is Thor truly out of reach?” There is the slightest quaver in his voice as he asks it, and you realize that he must have come to New Asgard, above all other reasons, because he was certain Thor would be here.

“It’s true,” you say apologetically. “But we expect him to come back in two months or so, a bit before the Solstice.”

Loki looks past you toward the precipice and the grey boulders, neither of which can be seen since the fog is darkening. You would not have thought he could look more fatigued than when he emerged from the fog, but now he does. “He’ll always be the God of Thunder,” he said dryly, to you, or to the boulders, or to nothing. He suppresses a cough and his eyes return to you. “Is she a benevolent ruler?”

“Brunnhilde? She’s--capable and just. Punches mouthy citizens but doesn’t imprison them.” He needs somewhere to stay tonight; you have a spare room, though unfortunately your house is on the other side of New Asgard. 

“I’m glad we continue to be a beacon of civilization,” Loki deadpans. He sighs, his breath becoming an augmentation of the fog. “I’ll not take more of your time. Would you point me toward an inn?” 

“We don’t have one, yet.” There  _ is _ a man who rents out his attic, but he has a collection of cattle bone tankards that he tells tourists are made from the bones of frost giants he beheaded. “But I have a spare room, and you’re more than welcome to stay there tonight.” You smile uncertainly; his refusing to “take more of your time” does not make you think he will rest in your house. 

Loki’s eyes widen as if you had said something outlandish. “I can’t impose on you, of all people.” His tone is as stiff as the frost on a window. 

“Why not? We were friends--more than friends.” You pause to steady your voice. “And you’ve never wronged me.” 

Loki scoffs, which makes him cough again. “I won your heart and then expeditiously became a murderous madman.” He gives you a bitter smile. “If that did not wrong you, my dear, what would?”

You shake your head, trying to find the right words. “And thereafter you became a humane king, and thereafter our savior, and thereafter--but you didn’t aim to break my heart.”

Loki brushes tangled hair out of his face. “You’re excessively maganimous.”

“Please, at least let me give you a place to rest tonight,” you urge, and add hesitantly and honestly, “I’ll worry about you all night if you don’t.” 

“I’ve survived death itself thrice,” he says sardonically, “and you’d brood over my spending a night outside?” He follows you as you begin to walk through the fog toward New Asgard. 

“Yes.” Behind you, his steps are quiet, so quiet that you wish he was walking beside you instead so you could see him and be reassured that he is here. You are both silent as you descend the hill and walk onto the edge of New Asgard’s main street. You look back over your shoulder. “I live at the other end,” you say ruefully. He is playacting that he is not out of breath. “Do you mind if we rest for a moment?”

Loki looks at you knowingly, but takes a step away from the road and leans his right shoulder against an oak. You stand beside him, folding your arms. The fog is getting colder. 

“Are you still a bard?” he asks quietly, rubbing the oak’s bark with his fingertips. 

“Yes. Though Midgardians call me a ‘folk-rock singer-songwriter.”

One of Loki’s brows rises. “‘Rock’? I take it you’re no longer playing a harp.” 

You shake your head. “No, I didn’t bring it with me. I went to a music shop here to buy a new one, after I’d earned money by singing lessons, but it had none; I tried an electric guitar and bought it instead. And Tru--you might remember her, she was a kitchenmaid--is my drummer. She can’t sing, but she has a good sense of rhythm. Our album was so popular that she’s moved into her own cottage.” 

Loki gives you a proud though slight smile. “I must obtain a copy. Ah, speaking of your friends--is Lif well?” 

You grin. “ _ Very _ . She’s married a Midgardian lawyer, Salvador Lopez, and they have the sweetest baby I’ve ever seen--her name’s Inge Maria. They live in the cottage next to mine, and Lif has been hired to paint murals in a--”

Somebody screams on the other side of the street. You look across and see a woman pointing through the fog at Loki, her eyes and mouth as round as moons. She whirls and runs into her cottage, slamming her red door. 

“Now, is she screaming because I’m not dead, or because she deems I  _ am  _ dead ?” Loki ponders. He tries to laugh and coughs instead, coughs longer than the woman screams. 

You look up at him anxiously and say when his coughs end, “You should see a healer, Loki.”

“In a few days, if I’m not mended. Shall we continue? It’s growing dark.”

You nod and recommence leading the way to your cottage, planning to ask him again tomorrow to visit healers. Either Surtur or Thanos killed the Lady Eir, but three Asgardian healers are in New Asgard, plus a Midgardian physician’s assistant. His steps behind you keep becoming slower and then tenaciously quicker again, though you are walking almost as slowly as you would if every fallen leaf on the sidewalk were a small sheet of ice. You stop and bend to re-tie both of your well-tied boots.

The streetlight in front of your cottage reflects off its glass windows and makes all the bumps in its plaster have shadows. You pull your keys from your trench coat pocket and unlock the door. “Oh--” you remember. “I forgot to tell you, I found a kitten in the street a year and a half ago. She attacks ankles, hems, and hair.” You push the door open, walk inside, and bend to catch Aster (short for Disaster) as she speeds toward the doorway, a black and white agent of chaos. “Hello, darling--no, don’t bite my nose!” You set her down on the braided rug and turn toward Loki, smiling a little awkwardly.“The first door on the left is the washroom, if you'd like to refresh yourself before dinner.” 

Loki has closed and locked the door. He bends and holds his right hand out to Aster, who hovers her little pink nose above it and then bites his forefinger. “That’s quite discourteous,” he apprises her, and then raises his eyes to you. “Thank you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another source I consulted for this fic: https://www.domesticshelters.org/articles/health/strangulation-can-leave-long-lasting-injuries


	3. Chapter 3

The bathroom floor squeaks as Loki walks around on it. You look up from setting the table, frowning slightly as you wonder if he knows how to turn the shower on. You certainly didn’t know how to turn a shower on when you came to Midgard; should you have told him to turn it left and upward?

You set spoons down on the two napkins, and set a knife on top of the butter dish. The bread is on a plate; the stew is making the kitchen smell like thyme and barley--ah, there’s the sound of the shower. 

Full comprehension thuds into your mind. Loki is alive and in your house, at this split second, as you use hotpads to pick up the inside part of the slow cooker, as Aster bites the hem of your skirt. After he’s been dead for seven years, after Thanos killed him, after he caused Ragnarok’s consummate moment, after he pretended he was the Allfather, after he died in Svartalfheim, after he attacked Midgard, after he fell--he’s here, on the other side of your cottage. And it sounds as if he just dropped the soap. 

Eyes wide, you set the stew on the kitchen table and sit down quickly on one of its wooden chairs. 

Thirteen years since the last time you conversed with each other…. That wasn’t completely his decision, you admit to yourself. He didn’t tell you he was pretending to be the Allfather; but you surmised that he was, and you could have spoken to him--he hired you to play at the palace and at the theater, often. And then, on the Statesman--he had seen you and hadn’t crossed the room, but you could have crossed it. You’d thought he wouldn’t want you to talk to him, since he had told you to forget him, but maybe you should have at least told him that you had not forgotten him. You wish you had. 

You feel a tear running down your cheek; you wipe it off with your napkin. Loki needs to eat and rest, and you will give him stew and bread and a room. That is straightforward. 

The washroom door opens and you look up. Loki has tied his half-dried hair back from his face and conjured up a green tunic and black trousers. Though he looks like a personification of fatigue, he is smiling at you, familiar lines at the ends of his mouth and the corners of his eyes. 

“It’s ready,” you say, returning his smile. 

He takes his seat and begins buttering bread, using only his right hand. “Did you bake--” He looks you in the eyes and his sentence breaks off. “Is aught amiss?” 

You must not have wiped your eyes well enough. “No, not presently.” You tie a knot in your napkin. “I was wishing I’d spoken to you on the Statesman, or when you were king.” 

Loki blinks. “I had told you to forget we met,” he says carefully. “Towards me, you had no obligations.” He spoons stew into his bowl, his hand quavering. 

“That wasn’t what I meant.” Concentrating on trying to think of the right words, you nearly put stew on your plate instead of in your bowl. Aster, who has food in her dish, essays springing onto the table, and you ward her off. “I’ve missed you sorely, Loki; I  _ wanted  _ to speak with you then, but I thought—I thought if you wished to converse with me, you would speak first. I’m wondering if I misunderstood.” 

He looks at you rather like one might look at someone who was babbling interesting but unintelligible things in their sleep. “I took your silence as prudent acceptance of my message,” he says, gently enough. “Or as a manifestation of aversion, though you’ve made it clear tonight it was not that.”

“No, it wasn’t that. It wasn’t either.” He looks disquietingly tired, the shadows under his beautiful eyes almost as dark as his hair, even his lips pallid. He needs to be eating and sleeping, not discussing past possibilities. “But we’ll have time tomorrow to speak of this and other things. Let’s eat before the stew cools.”

“And before your cat eats it,” Loki adds with a flicker of a smile. You realize that Aster is on his lap, little nostrils sniffing the scent of broth. 

“Oh dear. Would you like me to shut her in my chamber?” 

Loki looks down at her, rubbing the white fur behind her black ears. “A cat may look at a king. Or sit on a prince.” Aster purrs and then nips the edge of the table. 

You are both quiet until Loki finishes his stew; then you ask, “Would you like more? Or tea, or coffee?” 

“Thank you, but I’ll retire.” Loki nudges Aster off his lap and stands. “The loft chamber?” Apparently he has comprehended your house’s floor plan. 

You shake your head, standing up. “The ground floor one.” You cross the kitchen and open the bedroom’s door. “It still has some of Tru’s belongings in it, for which I apologize--she lived here until last month, and she hasn’t come back for them.” Including a preposterously large, pink, stuffed bear that is slouching against the wall beside the bed; a dressmaker’s dummy; and twenty-four lava lamps, which you begin turning off. You’d forgotten those were on….

You were glad to let Tru have the downstairs room, since she has been afraid of heights ever since flying in The Statesman, but you have been wishing she would come remove her belongings so you can sleep there. Now you wish it all the more, though Loki would have needed to sleep downstairs no matter what; he shouldn’t be climbing a ladder. But switching chambers would have been better than switching off two dozen pink lamps teeming with plops of pink light. 

You turn off the last lamp and smile at Loki, who is leaning against one of the bedposts and watching you as if you were doing something far more captivating than dealing with conspicuous lamp consumption. Aster is rubbing against his legs. “If you need anything, I’ll be upstairs, and I’ll wake up if you call.” You bend and scoop up Aster. “Oh, if you want to turn the kitchen light on during the night, use the switch beside the door to the living room--the one beside this door stopped working a few days ago.” Aster bites your thumb, hard enough to break the skin a little. “Aster,  _ no _ ! Don’t bite!”

Loki puts a finger under Aster’s tiny white chin and looks into her yellow eyes. “You’d rue the day you pained her, were you more than a cat,” he tells her, his voice far too soft to scare her. Aster yawns and then nips Loki’s finger. 

“She never changes,” you say ruefully, your face warm from a surprised blush. 

“All one can do is test,” Loki says, and gives you a lopsided smile. “Rest well.”


	4. Chapter 4

You wake very early the next morning, a Wednesday, to the sounds of quiet floor creaks and metal clinks and clicks. The floor doesn’t creak when Aster walks on it, so it must be Loki who is up. Yes, he’s coughing. But why has he gotten up at five in the morning, after being so fatigued last night? And why is he clicking metal together? 

You pull yourself out of bed, belt a robe over your nightgown, and walk to the loft’s doorway, from which you can see the hall. Loki—Aster on one side of him, the large toolbox that you store at the bottom of your pantry on the other—has taken your light switch off the wall and is doing something with pliers in the rectangular hole behind it.

Silently, you climb down the ladder and approach him, stopping on the other side of the toolbox. You crane your neck a little, trying to see what he is doing. 

“I learned the craft of circuitry in order to electrocute the Grandmaster of Sakaar in his heated tub,” Loki says casually, frowning into the hole. He twists the pliers two more times and winces as he bends to pick up the light switch, which is lying beside its plate on top of the closed toolbox. He begins reattaching it. 

You pick up the plate and sit down on the toolbox, watching the reattachment. “Why did you wish to do that?” you ask, without scandalization; Thor has mentioned that the Grandmaster was a slaveholder and a libertine. 

“Perhaps I’ll describe a typical morning.” Loki reaches for the plate and you hand it to him. “The Grandmaster rises, and summons all his guests to drink liquor with him. He summons a merchant for a business discussion and tries to pay him in slaves rather than money. He melts the merchant for refusing the offer.” Loki pauses as he finishes tightening the plate's top screw. “Then he melts a slave for screaming when he melted the merchant, harrasses the maid or manservant who is serving liquor, nicknames me ‘Lily,’”—he tightens the bottom screw— “decides he’d rather have an orgy than breakfast—” Loki breaks off his sentence as he flips the lightswitch up and amber warms the coolly lit walls. “Ta-da!” He smothers a cough.

You beam up at the light and at him. “Thank you!”

Loki looks down at you with a smile that becomes amused at the sight of your bedhead and fades when he sees your bare feet on the cottage’s frigid wooden floor. “You’ll catch cold.”

“Probably not,” you demur. One of the advantages of being a commoner is that you are not embarrassed by people seeing your feet. “But why  _ were _ you fixing it at dawn?”

“Why not?” he parries, and helps you up, his fingers curving around yours. “Do you find my reasons for assassinating him sufficient? Ah—do let me note that I slipped out the side door before the orgy began.”

“Him—Oh. The grandmaster.” Even though it’s a quarter after five in the morning and the hallway is cold and he’s telling you about assassination plans, you wish he wasn’t releasing your hand. “Yes. Did you try to do it—was that why he put the obedience disc on you?” you ask quietly. 

Loki tilts his head, his brows drawing together. “What?”

You lean against the wall, sleep-deprived. “Korg says the Grandmaster tortured you with a disc; he thinks it was for aiding 

Thor.” 

Loki laughs mirthlessly, and his right shoulder twitches. “Three guesses who used the disc?” He puts the screwdriver he was using back into the toolbox and latches its lid.

“I’d rather not play a guessing game,” you say, your voice soft. “You can tell me, or not tell me, or tell me later.” 

Loki strokes Aster’s spotted back, making her purr. “What would you say if I told you that Thor did it, and that it was an equitable deed?” 

_ What?! _ “I—I would say that’s the first thing you’ve told me that wasn’t true,” you breathe. 

Loki raises his eyes from Aster. “Has Thor grown so much in your estimation since I left you?” His lips are the only part of his face that moves as he asks it. 

“No. I’d believe he did it. I meant that I would never approve of anyone—torturing you.” How and why and  _ what _ happened on Saakar?? You clasp your hands tightly together. 

He studies your face as if you had said something unlikely and suspicious, but then the skepticism leaves his eyes. “Then I hope your reservoir of disapproval is large. On a merrier note….” Too suddenly, he smiles. “How do New Asgardians break their fast? I find I’ve gained an appetite.”

After a second of trying to process that Loki went from moonlighting—dawnlighting ?—as an electrician, to talking about assassinations and orgies, to holding your hand, to disclosing that his brother tortured him, to asking for breakfast, you manage to return his smile. “With eggs, today. Lif keeps chickens, and I traded her bread for eggs yesterday. Do you like omelets?” 

He says he does, so you hurry up the ladder to dress. You look back once; Loki has picked up Aster and buried his face against her fur. She is not trying to bite him, which is dumbfounding. Perhaps even she is feeling sleep-deprived and stupefied. 

Your clothes look insipidly colored in the early light of the cloudy day. You put them on quickly—so quickly that you almost put a grey stocking on with a tan one—wondering what Loki meant by saying he hopes your reservoir of disapproval is large. Whatever he meant wasn’t anything good; the most obvious interpretation is that numerous individuals have tortured him….

The sound of your front door opening, and then a quiet yelp. Oh, right. You forgot that Lif has a key to your door—she usually comes here in the daytime, when it isn’t locked. You dress faster, their conversation clearly audible.

“Hello, Lif.” 

“Does—does she  _ know _ you’re haunting her house? Because if she doesn’t, or if she does not desire your presence, I  _ will _ ask Father Magnussen to come exorcise you..”

Loki laughs and then coughs. “Know?” he asks when he is able to talk again.”She invited me in. So you’ve become Catholic...a god worshiping a God….”

“My husband is Catholic,” Lif clarifies. “I’m an inquirer.”

You knot your second bootlace and clamber down to the ground floor, chiming in, “And you’re painting a lifesize image of the Virgin of Guadalupe.”

“For Salvador!” Lif parries. She is standing beside your dining table with her arms folded, her wispy brown hair—the tips of which she has dyed blue—in two braids. Unusually, Inge Maria isn’t in a carrier on her back. Lif points at Loki, who is leaning against the wall and smirking and looking too pale. “ _ Why _ is he in your hallway?” 

“We met yesterday, near...Thyra’s memorial...and I invited him,” you say, and give her a rather awkward smile because you do want to assure her that he is actually alive, but feel odd about explaining that in front of him. “Why are  _ you _ in my hallway— at a quarter to six? Weren’t you planning to paint til three in the morning last night?”

Lif’s face falls. “Brunnhilde sent out an electronic letter to everybody in Asgard who possesses devices,” she says. “And Salvador opened it when he rose to exercise at dawn.” She twists her braid around her paint-stained finger. “Someone else fell off the cliff, the one Thyra fell from. She wants everyone to gather at the hall at eight.”

Your eyes go wide.  _ No. Not again, not in new Asgard—Hrist, are you killing in a dead god’s name? But you had an alibi when Thyra fell…. _ “Who—?”

“Kåre, the old smith.” He was good at making chains, at whistling, and at writing while holding a quill with his toes.

“Is this the cliff at which we met last night?” The floor creaks as Loki walks toward you, his eyes bright with a dark hypothesis. Aster stalks him. 

“Yes,” you say. “There were flowers there, in Thyra’s memory, but it was probably too foggy for you to see them.”

Loki ruefully bites his lip. “Oh no, I saw them—but thought they were in Father’s honor. That’s the cliff from which he ascended to Valhalla.”


	5. Chapter 5

Twenty minutes before eight, you lock your cottage door after you and Loki leave it.  


Loki has been taciturn since he declared that the cliff from which Thyra and Kåre fell is the cliff from which Odin ascended; he ate his omelet in near silence, aside from thanking you, and answered with just “Yes,” when you asked if he was coming to the meeting. Now he follows you over the browning grass toward Lif’s cottage with creases between his eyebrows and his hands clasped behind his back (oddly enough, since his left arm is injured). 

Wearing a blue Asgardian tunic over Midgardian trousers, Salvador walks out of his and Lif’s rosebush-flanked doorway: a short, muscular man in his early thirties who usually looks as if he has just had the best idea he ever had in his life (and often  _ has _ ; he is one of the most brilliant people you have ever met), but who now looks as if--well, as if he had moved to a new village and the village then turned out to have a serial killer. He greets you with a half-smile, and holds out his hand to Loki. “Congratulations on your resurrection. My wife tells me you saved her life, twice; I’m in your debt.” 

“The mortal lawyer who’s chosen to throw in his lot with gods.” Loki ponders Salvador, hands still clasped behind his back. “Why?”

Salvador lets his hand fall to his side. “My parents were called ‘illegal aliens.’ I became a lawyer to help other immigrants. When aliens came to Norway without passports, without prior consultation with authorities, without any way of knowing human laws, it seemed like a good time to do the most interesting  _ pro bono _ work of my life.” He looks over his shoulder as Lif emerges from the doorway, Inge Maria wiggling in her arms, and smiles. “And then I met a very lovely artist.”

“AaaaAAAbababa,” says Inge Maria. 

Loki listened attentively to Salvador's narrative, and now gives him a slight nod (that he is too busy looking at his wife and baby to see). “Perhaps we are in  _ your _ debt.”

Lif is putting a knitted boot back on Inge’s chubby brown foot, but she smiles proudly as Loki says that. “So we are,” she agrees. “Inge, hold still--there.” 

Loki takes a few steps closer to Lif and Inge Maria, looking at the baby with a mixture of curiosity and liking. “I’ve heard from a most reliable source that you are one of the sweetest babies she’d ever seen,” he informs her. 

“Buababa.” Inge Maria reaches up to grab a lock of Loki’s long hair that has escaped from being tied back and pulls on it, a toothless smile on her face, her dark eyes bright under her nearly invisible little eyebrows. 

Loki smiles, but then hurriedly turns away from her and smothers a hacking cough. Lif steps back, automatically shielding Inge Maria’s face with her hand. “It’s--” Loki coughs again, so roughly that you cringe in sympathy. “Not contagious.” 

“What  _ is _ it?” Lif asks, understandably puzzled. Asgardians do not have what Midgardians term “seasonal allergies.” 

“Strangulation,” Loki says laconically. An awkward silence falls; a crow flies, crawing, across the aqua morning sky; Inge Maria puts her thumb in her mouth. Loki flicks a fly off his forearm and breaks the quiet. “Don’t we have a meeting to attend?”

You do, and so does almost everyone else in New Asgard. Wearing capes, cloaks, coats, parkas, or furs, people are trudging and striding through the chilly October air toward the Hall. Behind two people who are too excited about something interesting happening, and in front of three people who are afraid that an anti-alien Midgardian is targeting Asgardians, you and your friends wend your way through two rows of cottages, past the market that usually is open now, and past Father Magnusson’s church that Salvador, Lif, and five more Asgardians (including Inge Maria) attend. 

Salvador’s frown deepens as you pass it. “Thyra and Kåre were both in Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults classes,” he says. “The only two people in them, as it happens.”

“What are those?” you ask. 

“They're--” Salvador stops short as someone bawls, “What the Niflheim are you doing here?” You all look to your right (except Inge Maria, who starts crying) and see Ulf, the man who rents out his attic, trooping out of an alley with an axe in his hand as usual. One of his eyes is covered by an eyepatch, which is not as usual. His golden-bearded, middle-aged face is indignant. “This is New Asgard, not New Jotunheim!”

Your hands clench and your heart starts beating furiously fast, but before you have decided what to say, Loki is answering him, a faint, murderous smile on his face. “Shall I send you to meet Father, so you can show him the errors of his adoption policies?” 

Ulf bares his teeth and squeezes his axe handle. “Just try and--aah!!!” His axe crashes onto the cobblestones, spiders seething over it and over his hands. He waves them as if he were trying to fly, eye as round as the manhole cover he happens to be standing on, and then runs back down the alley, slamming against a rubbish bin. 

“Were those real?” Salvador exclaims. One tiny spider appears on the back of his hand, its grey legs long and fragile. He squints at it, an amazed smile touching his face, and lightly blows on it. It does not move. With one fingertip of his other hand, he touches it; it dissipates. “Miraculous!” 

“That man is a  _ blight _ ,” Lif says viciously, in the sort of tone that indicates she will paint a caricature of someone. “Just last month he picked up a Midgardian custom of whistling at women….”

Loki is walking onward, hands still clasped behind his back. You catch up with him. “I think he and Hrist are the only people here who are...” What would you call it? Asgard does not have a word for that. You remember a Midgardian one. “Chauvinistic.” 

He scoffs. “Would only the wolves who are growling eat you?” You turn a corner and walk into the square in front of the hall, which is swarming with people. “Ah, there’s Brunnhilde.”

There she is indeed, leaping up onto a boulder that stands in front of the hall, her orange jacket and yellow megaphone glowing in the brightening sunlight. “Asgardians!” she calls out. People almost stop talking. “Two of us, Thyra Bosdottir and Kåre the smith, fell off the same cliff exactly a week apart. That was not an accident. Maybe it was a suicide and a copied suicide. More likely, they were murdered.” She stops to breathe. People whisper and argue and put their hands up to awn their eyes from the sun. Was it Hrist? Another Asgardian? A Midgardian? Or devastation? “They will be avenged. If you know aught about their deaths, tell me. And now, the reason I called you here. Shall I investigate these deaths myself? Or shall we ask for Midgardian detectives’ help?”

You and Salvador realize at the same moment that Lif and Loki have both vanished into the crowd, heading toward Brunnhilde. “At least yours is tall,” he says, pointing at where Loki is walking much more speedily than he was strong enough to last night, and then disappears into the crowd in pursuit of Lif. 

You hurry after Loki, not because you are worried about what he is doing but because you are almost certain that he is going to volunteer to solve these crimes and you want to offer to help him. He is not familiar with New Asgard yet, but you have lived here for six years. 

Around people you know well and people whose names you know and people who delight in your music and people who say your music is bogus and people who are trying not to cry and people who are trying not to laugh--and, most prevalent of all, people saying, “Who was that?” and “Was that Prince Loki?!” and “Did you see him?”-- you weave, squinting in the sunlight. 

Lif reaches Brunnhilde first and interrupts her explanation of her plans to hold a referendum that afternoon: “Instead of holding a referendum on who should find a ‘serial killer,’ interrogate the woman who killed two people, tried to kill me, and stabbed a man in the leg!” she shouts at the top of her voice. Inge Maria starts wailing. 

Brunnhilde looks down at Lif with a frown, shaking waves of hair out of her face. “You mean Hrist.”

“Yes. I mean Hrist!” Lif pats her baby’s back. 

You look around, wondering where Hrist is. She is nowhere in sight; but Loki and Salvador are both walking out of the crowd now, Loki coughing into his elbow. 

“Hrist was very ill last night; she ate out-of-date salmon.” Brunnhilde is looking at Lif but talking into the megaphone, which is flared toward the crowd. “I heard her all night long, moaning and groaning and being sick in the room next to mine. Despite her zealot past, she did not. Kill.  _ Anyone _ . Last night.” She turns her head, her mouth moving away from the megaphone. “Are you content?”

Salvador steps closer to Lif and takes Inge Maria, holding her against his blue pullover sweater. 

Lif glances at Salvador and then looks up at Brunnhilde, two pairs of indignant eyes meeting. “I believe you,” Lif says, and presses her lips together before adding, “And apologize for interrupting.”

Brunnhilde nods. “I don’t stand on ceremony, Lif.” She puts the megaphone in front of her again. “As I was saying. There will be two buckets in the hall, from three to five this afternoon. One folded paper vote apiece, and I’ll be watching to ensure nobody puts in two.”

“You’ll need three buckets, actually.” Loki has managed to stop coughing and now he is standing with his arms folded and his shoulders back, staring up at Brunnhilde. 

“What’s the third option?” she asks. 

“I am.” Loki smothers a cough. He is speaking loudly enough for the nearest thirty or so Asgardians to understand him. “For five centuries, I solved Asgard’s crimes. You'll find nobody with more experience.” 

The crowd murmurs; Brunnhilde jumps down off the rock. “Anyone want to give a testimonial?” she calls out. 

“He solved my friend Inge’s murder,” you volunteer. “And I know he’s solved many other crimes as well.” Loki’s eyes flick toward you; he almost looks surprised that you testified for him. 

“And saved my life,” Lif adds. 

“He solved my sister’s murder!” a man shouts. 

“Found out who was poisoning me!” someone else chips in, an old woman with a deep voice. 

“Found the goats my cousin stole!” a woman wearing a hat with a large yellow pompom cries, a hand on each side of her mouth.

Loki looks down at the cobblestones, his mouth curving into an unsteady smile, and then raises an eyebrow at Brunnhilde. “Satisfied?”

She shrugs, bemused but not displeased. “I can’t believe your brother never mentioned you were a  _ detective _ . Grand. You get a bucket. But what’s your price?”

“A room in the Hall,” Loki says instantly.

She incredulously chuckles. “You could have asked for one last night. I wouldn’t turn any Asgardian out of doors.” 

“Perhaps not. But I prefer to earn what I gain.” As he says that, Loki glances at you. So that’s why he was up at dawn fixing your wiring. He couldn’t even sleep in your spare room for a night without feeling like he needed to repay you. 

“There’s one problem with this, Loki,” Brunnhilde says suddenly, her voice too quiet for most people to hear. “You don’t know New Asgard. Not yet.”

  
Loki hesitates and then looks directly at you, with uncertain but active trust. “But  _ she _ does.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to my friend Shade_Stark for all her support as I write this series and especially for helping me develop Salvador Lopez's character!


	6. Chapter 6

“Really, what denizen of a  _ fishing village _ eats rancid salmon?” Loki asks, and starts coughing again. In front of the hall, you agreed to help him solve the murders, if the people of New Asgard so voted; now--since it is many hours until the referendum--Lif and Salvador have gone home and you are giving Loki a tour of the village. And, unbeknownst to him, steering him toward the healers. He forces his coughs to stop. “I believe Brunnhilde that she did, and that she was in her room last night.” He is speaking too quietly for anyone except you to hear. “But--she sickened herself to prove she was abed.” 

“So there are at least two murderers,” you realize, your stomach quailing.”Or a murderer and an abetter.” 

Loki nods, his steps on the sidewalk increasingly slow. Sleeping and eating helped him, but he is overexerting himself. Really, who but Loki would volunteer to solve crimes while recuperating from being dead?! This quiet street, near the other end of which the healers practice, is downhill, but he is breathing as if it were the opposite. “If the people choose us, we’ll speak to Thyra’s family and to the priest tomorrow, and to the smith’s family and apprentices the day after that. His funeral is tomorrow. Do you know the priest?”

You shake your head. “Salvador and Lif do. It seems significant that Thyra and Kåre were converting. Perhaps the murderers hate Christians?”

“Hm, it’s possible.” Loki thoughtfully moistens his lips. “But, if so, why haven’t they slain the priest?” 

A pickup truck rolls past you, a cart drawn by a bay draft-horse trailing it. “He’s a Norwegian; perhaps they don’t want Norwegian detectives to come here,” you theorize. And there’s the healers’ longhouse, closed white curtains inside all of its evenly spaced windows, orange and yellow leaves piling on its shallow-sloped roof. You gesture at the building. “That’s the house of healing; three Asgardian healers and a Midgardian one.” Hopefully, you pause. Perhaps he’ll decide to enter it of his own initiative. 

Loki glances at it. “Is the Lady Eir among them?”

You stop walking; if you went farther, you’d pass the healers’ door. “She fell,” you says quietly. “I know not when.” 

Loki’s hands knot into fists, and he strides past the door, past the first closed window, past the second. 

“Loki!” You raise your voice just loudly enough that he’ll hear you. It’s not a good moment to try to persuade him to go through that door, behind which Lady Eir should be and behind which she is not, but he must see a healer. He half turns and looks back at you. “Please go in, since we’re here.”

He turns back toward you all the way, mouth taut, eyes narrowed, as if you had led him into a trap, not to the healers. “You intended this; this tour of New Asgard was merely a pretext to lead me here.”

You swallow hard, nervous. What if he decides not to go to the healers at all, just to be contrary? “It wasn’t merely a pretext, but I did intend to bring you here.” You take a step closer to him. “You’re still coughing, and I can tell your arm at best is bruised and at worst might have fractures that are healing wrongly.”

He tilts his head, the autumn sunlight brightening his eyes and making his nose cast an angular shadow. “Do you not trust me to care for myself?”

Asks the man who had died three times, once by suicide and twice by self-sacrifice. “I would trust you to care for me, or for New Asgard, or Old Asgard, for that matter,” you say carefully. “But for yourself--no.” 

Loki considers that, eyes on the pavement where your respective pairs of boots are one stride away from each other. His fingers are talons; his palm is their prey. You stand very still, almost wishing you had not tried to bring him here. Maybe he would have taken himself to the healers, if you hadn’t bothered him about it. Maybe it was meddlesome of you to steer him here. 

A refrigerated truck that belongs to Salmon of Knowledge Fish, Inc. barrels down the road. Somebody curses at it, and you look after it, eye caught by its exhaust plume. “If you use up all your pity on me, will the local stray cats have to go without?” Loki wonders. 

You look up into his bitter eyes, taken aback. “Stray cats--” You shake your head, consider saying that you help all your friends, and change your mind. This conversation is like running down a road that keeps having obscured forks and unforeseeable dropoffs. Perhaps you can speak as the crow flies: straight to the point. You clasp your hands together and try to keep your voice from being too high. Beside a house of healing with exhaust-smelling wind blowing your skirt around and making you feel like you might sneeze is not the best place to say this.... “Loki, I want to make certain you’re healing properly because  _ I love you _ .” 

Loki’s eyes widen, his lips parting, disconsolation metamorphosing into confounded hope. “...After thirteen years of desertion, and enough ruin and death that I could play the villain in every song you write for thirteen centuries?” 

You take half a step closer, touching his arm. “I tru--”

“We  _ are _ open,” says a cheerful voice behind you and you start and turn, sentence interrupted. A woman with grey curls is holding the door of the house of healing open: Margaret, the Midgardian’s physician's assistant, who is partially faceblind. “We look like we’re closed, but we’re open. Are you here for an appointment? Or for a walk-in visit?”

Loki smothers a cough. “I’m here to see if my death had any lingering side effects,” he deadpans, and walks in though the open door. 


	7. Chapter 7

“I’ll wait here,” you say, sitting down on one of the wooden benches that border the wall of the waiting room. Margaret is sitting on the other end of it, looking rather flummoxed and furious and searching on her phone’s internet browser (is that what they’re called?) for photographs of Loki. 

Loki, following Troels, one of the Asgardian healers, towards an examination room, looks back at you. “Or you could accompany me,” he says, which you most certainly did not expect him to propose. 

“Then I will,” you agree, because you can’t think of why he would offer that if he didn’t want you to, and you follow him and the healer down the long central hallway of the longhouse, parallel doors on the right wall and the left wall. You wince as you hear somebody narrating how they got a fish hook in their posterior. 

Troels opens the next door and beckons Loki and you in. “Please be seated, Lord Loki.” He gestures toward a couch, and then looks at you as he closes the door. “And that bench is for family, or friends.” 

You sit down on the leather cushion, folding your hands on your lap. The wall is covered in tongue and groove wainscotting; against your back, through your gown, you can feel the places where the boards connect. 

Loki is sitting up straight on the edge of the couch, looking across the small room at the cupboards full of Asgardian potions and Midgardian disinfectants. Troels takes his blood pressure (slightly high). “I apologize for the squeezing device,” he says gravely. “We cannot recraft our old tools of healing. What has brought you here, my lord? I heard yesterday that you had arrived in New Asgard; my wife saw you.” You wonder if she was the woman who screamed.

“I was strangled, and both my neck and my arm were broken,” Loki says with succinct detachment. “Bending my arm and turning my head are still difficult; I have a persistent cough, and weary easily.” 

Troels opens his mouth, and then closes it, and then says, “You’ll need your arm and neck x-rayed, to see if there are hairline fractures, but I can determine now if you have any dislocated bones. Would you mind disrobing from the waist up, my lord?”

You look down at your hands; when he invited you to come with him, he might not have expected this.

A slight gasp of pain. You flinch. 

“Shall I help you with the sleeve, my lord?”

“No.” 

The tunic falling off the arm of the couch, onto the oaken floor.

“ _ Odin’s beard _ !” Troel cries.

You look up and forget how to move. It would make sense for Loki’s body to look as if he’d died before; it would make sense for him to look as if he’d led armies in defeats as well as victories. But why,  _ why _ does he look as if--as if, perhaps a decade ago, someone had tried to brutalize him as gravely as possible without slaying him and without scarring anything his raiment would not hide? And then staked him, for good measure? 

“Why--do you look like you’ve been impaled?” Troel asks.

Loki rolls his eyes. “Have you heard of Occam’s Razor?” 

“No?”

“I didn’t think so.” His tone is sharp. 

“Is that what wounded--”

Loki interrupts. “Would you mind examining my current injuries, rather than goggling over those entirely mended?” 

“I beg your pardon, Lord Loki.” Troel bends and begins feeling the bones in Loki’s arm, a mixture of embarrassment and disorientation in his expression.

You make your hands let go of each other, realizing that you were clasping them so lightly you won't be surprised if they get bruises.  _ I hope your reservoir of disapproval is large _ . You didn’t know just how large it was until now. 

The cupboards would die if they were animate and Loki’s looks could kill. “It could be fractured, but it’s not dislocated,” Troel states, and steps behind the couch to examine his spine. “Please lean forward, my lord.” Loki does, and Troel scrutinizes the alignment of his neck and back before walking around the couch to look from the front. “All seems to be where it ought to be, my lord. I’ll send you to the room that contains the x-ray device; and I would recommend that you do not use your arm or put strain on your neck for several weeks. Return here again if your cough does not cease. Unless the x-ray shows that some sliver of bone is jutting into the interior of your throat, time should heal it.” Loki nods. Troel clears his throat. “Or you may want to see a Midgardian physician,” he admits. “I was only an apprentice when Asgard fell, and so were the other two healers. I’ll bid you farewell, my lord. Margaret will come to conduct your x-ray.” He bows and leaves, closing the door after him.

You rise more quickly than Loki does, and bend to pick up his tunic for him.

“Thank you.” He takes it and you look down at your hands again, not wanting to embarrass him by watching him put it on. But he shouldn’t be using his right arm, and it is made so it can only be donned by pulling it over the head. 

“May I help you with that?” you ask diffidently. “Since you shouldn’t use your arm.”

Loki suppresses a cough, and hesitates before answering, “If you will.” 

You take the tunic and then halt, not knowing how to do this. Your only experience of putting garments on another person is a couple times you have changed Inge Maria’s clothes when she spit up and Lif had paint on her hands; and she is tiny and does not have an arm that must not be bent. 

His scars look even more racking now that you are close to them, white or purple, jagged or straight. 

Loki laughs very quietly and then lifts his left arm without bending it, giving you a wry smile. “Put this sleeve on first.” You slide it on and then slip the neckline over his head, your fingers brushing against his hair, and he pushes his right arm up through the other sleeve and pulls the tunic down. 

“I’m surprised Troel didn’t ask if you wanted pain medicine,” you say softly. 

“He was  _ slightly _ distracted.” Loki looks up at you, absently pulling a raveling thread out of one of the couch’s seams, and raises an eyebrow. “No questions?”

_ Who maltreated you? How did you survive impalement? Are you in pain? Can I help? _ You can’t ask all of those, here in an exam room into which Margaret will come at any second. “On the contrary, but I’ll only ask one, here.” 

“Speak.”

“Are you out of peril from them?”

Loki blinks, nonplussed; he must have expected your curiosity about his past to outweigh your concern for his future. “Yes.” He swallows and stands up, towering over you again. “Until I see them in Hel.” 

“Loki!” You touch the back of his hand. “You won’t go to Hel!”

“I think he will,” Margaret says as she swings open the door, in the most resentful tone you have ever heard her speak in. She closes the door hard and raises a finger at Loki, tears on her lined face. “I didn’t recognize you, because I’m faceblind. But now I know who you are. My sister and her husband were living in New York City twelve years ago. You or one of your sidekicks killed her husband. She’s in a psych ward because of her PTSD. You are  _ lucky  _ I believe in the Hippocratic oath!” 

Loki’s face is inscrutable. His eyes turn to you. “Would you step out, for a moment?”

You feel as if it is unwise to leave them alone together, but you step out and close the door behind you, and then stay very close to it so you can hear if there are any loud sounds. You do not think Loki would hurt her, and she could not hurt him, if he defended himself, but your hands are trembling with anxiety. 

“Are you ashamed for her to hear you apologize?!” Margaret demands.

“Who said I was going to apologize? Is that what you desire?”

“It wouldn’t bring Shane back. Or give Stephanie closure. So no.”

“If you did violate your Hippocratic oath...not another soul is here.”

Margreat says nothing. Your stomach twists. And then she whisper-shouts, “Are you trying to psych me out? You’d tell someone.”

“Whom would I tell?”

A very, very long, complete silence. You touch the doorknob.

“Okay, no, I don’t want vengeance,” Margaret says, her voice shaking. “Because now I believe the people who say you aren’t guilty by reason of insanity. The x-ray room is at the other end of the building, straight down the hallway. Go there and then get out.” 

You move sideways and she throws the door open and hurries down the hallway towards the women’s restroom, suppressing sobs. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Credit to Loki-God-of-Menace for the broken arm theory: https://loki-god-of-menace.tumblr.com/post/180540594371/thelightofthingshopedfor-loki-god-of-menace


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am sorry this update has taken so long! I am in my last semester of college and am very busy. But after I graduate, I hope to have much more time to write :)

After Loki’s x-rays are taken (they will be analyzed by tomorrow), you choose the quietest road away from the healers’ longhouse--a road under gold-leafed birch trees, mixed with a few oaks. Squirrels run across it, stopping in the middle to stand up and cross their arms across their chests. 

Loki is silent, his jaw clenched. You keep quiet, too, until birches are entirely surrounding the road and their warm-colored leaves almost cloaking it, and then you say, “Perhaps she is unconscious that one of the Stones had supremacy over you.”

“Why would she know that?” Loki asks, his tone as tense as his jaw; but he starts as he says the last word. He looks sideways at you, raising one of his brows. “Actually, why do you know that?”

“The New Asgard Soothsayer published an article about it five years ago, written by Dr. Banner.” You catch a golden leaf that has twirled onto your sleeve before it can slip off. It’s just slightly paler than the apple leaves that fell in Asgard, the day Thor was not crowned. “I wouldn’t have thought there was anyone in New Asgard who didn’t know about it, but she only moved here half a year ago.”

He is silent again, eyes downcast. Your steps crunch on the drier leaves, and a squirrel’s springs tinily echo them. Loki looks up as an orange maple leaf, blown from a different stand of trees, swoops down; he reaches out and catches its stem, and holds it out to you. “Had that article never been printed, would you still have sheltered me?” he inquires, almost casually. 

You take the leaf, letting your fingers brush against his, and hold it next to the one you already caught. You could say “of course, you saved us from Hela”; but really, if you had found him at any time homeless and looking like he did last night, you would have asked him to stay. “Yes.”

“I thought you warier than this,” he says, his voice low. 

“Of strangers, Allfathers, and zealots, yes. Not of you.”

Audibly, he draws in his breath. “Your judgement is not in error.” He looks ahead, towards another squirrel that is standing near the edge of the road, holding an acorn in its minuscule red hands and aggressively nibbling on it. “I would protect you to the death.”

“Loki...” you breathe, holding your leaves as if you think they will try to fly away under their own power. 

Loki laughs, too suddenly. “The next turn might as well be yours, my dear—Thor’s had two. Or three. The lack of variety—” He breaks off as he starts coughing, and buries his mouth in his elbow.

You wince at how grating his coughs are, and look around for a place he can sit and rest—ah, there’s a fallen tree trunk a few yards back in the woods. When he catches his breath, you point toward it. “Let’s sit there for a little while.” 

On the way to it, he reaches up, with his arm that he should not be using, to hold a branch out of your way.

You sit next to each other on the treetrunk. The wind and the squirrels, running and yelling at each other across the yellow leaves, are the only audible noises. “You’ve released an album,” he says, as if you had just been talking about it. “Are you writing airs for another?”

You shake your head, tracing a seam in your skirt. “I have a thousand years of songs memorized, and I’ve already chosen the twelve for my next album. But my business manager says I shouldn’t release more than one or two a year.” Loki looks as interested as if you were explaining convoluted inter-realm affairs of state, so you continue. “I intended to spend the autumn and winter studying the history of Midgard, and making plans for lending to Asgardian craftsfolk without interest, if my second album also flourishes.” Craftsfolk like Sweyn, who desires to reproduce Asgardian air ships. 

“How could it not?” Loki gives you a flicker of a smile. “You’ve let these mortals hear the music of the realm eternal.” 

You laugh softly. “Well, with an electric guitar.” He is scratching his palm, a little harder than he would if it were itchy. “Have you decided what you’ll do, after we solve these murders?”

“I’ll undertake as much as Brunhilde will give me: I doubt she has the leisure to assess New Asgard’s taxes, or oversee the hiring of librarians, or supervise those who salt its streets.” He shakes hair out of his face. “And I’ll discover if there is any boon the city of New York would accept as weregild.” 

You nod, setting the leaves on your lap and folding your hands. Weregild will not console Margaret, or any other Midgardian, save perhaps a money-yearning politician, merry or consoled, but this is still a prudent course to take. Though it’s the titan Thanos who, in justice, ought to have paid it…. “Do you wish to be king again?” you ask, your tone neutral. You hope not. As Odin’s son, he has the right to retake the throne from Brunnehilde, who is unrelated: but she rules well, and the last thing New Asgard needs is a contest for the throne. 

Loki looks at you from the corner of his eye. “I do not. Which, I see, relieves you greatly.” 

You sigh, looking down at your hands and chafing your cold fingers with your thumb. Of course he’ll think you disliked his rule. “If you were to seek the throne now...well, you are the rightful king, and you would rule impeccably again.” He shifts his weight. “Don’t think I’m denouncing your policies; I can’t think of any, when you were the Allfather, that weren’t virtuous and prudent. It’s just that if Asgardian history gains another turning point... it’s going to be a coiled spring.” You hesitate and then look at him and add, voice unsteady because this is a great commitment to make and even though he is the rightful king, you aren’t sure it isn’t wrong to say this, “But if you did desire the throne, I’d be on your side.” A crow caws in the air above you. 

Loki is studying your face, his eyes soft though there are frown lines between his brows. “I’d prefer a different preposition,” he murmurs. He seems to have moved closer to you while you were looking down. 

“...different proposition…?” you echo. 

“Preposition. ‘At,’ not--” He coughs into his elbow. “Not merely ‘on.’” 

At--at your side--! He can’t possibly be saying what you think he is saying, not after thirteen years, not after almost refusing to stay in your house for one night. “At your side. What do you mean?” you manage to ask, your voice almost quieter than the wind. 

Before you are ready, he answers quite explicitly, his tone intensely calm: “After we discover the perpetrator of these murders, I intend to ask you for your hand.”

You catch your breath, feeling as if the log you and Loki are sitting on started rolling. Indubitably, openly, he has said he wants you as his wife. And while your heart is pounding “yes,” your mind is querying “why?” After all these years--does he love you? Is he merely wanting a home? Does he feel obliged to propose, since he wooed you? You try to speak and your voice fails. 

Loki straightens, the warmth leaving his expression. “Is that not what you want?”

You catch hold of his hand and force your mind and your voice to function. “If you--if you love me, I’d be willing to wed you today.” Loki’s eyes widen. “If you want a marriage of convenience, in truth, I’m willing to wed you. But if you feel….” You swallow, and finish your sentence, though his hand enveloping yours makes you almost certain it doesn’t need to be finished. “If you feel obliged to marry me, you are thinking awry and I will remain unwed.” 

Loki lifts your hand and kisses the back of it. His breath is warm against your cold fingers. And then he lets go and puts his hands on his knees. Green light pulls open the air above them and a very familiar shirt--the one you sewed him--drapes over them and onto the trunk, one of its sleeves dropping dowl to touch the fallen leaves. “I still have it,” he says, the corner of his mouth curving up.

You reach out and brush your fingers across it. Yes, you remember this fabric, this thread… You give Loki an almost-teary smile. “I still have the green cloak you gave me, under my pillow. I haven’t been wearing it because I thought it might fray and….” A lump fills your throat and you look at the shirt. 

Loki slips a hand out from under it and touches your wrist.“Do not doubt that you are dear to me,” he says, his voice low. “Or fear you will lack my devotion, if--” He breaks off as a twig cracks ahead, looking up so sharply that it would not be unfair to call him jumpy. But his expression is far more death-dealing than anxious. He stands up, the shirt vanishing, and steps in front of you. 

A squirrel slinkily leaps out from a patch of dried ferns and scampers onto a stump. Loki’s shoulders relax, a little, and he folds his arms. You look up at him silently for a moment, waiting for him to finish what he was saying. Then he speaks, his tone cooler than it was. “I meant it, when I said I would ask for your hand after this murderer is discovered. Do not pledge yourself today.”

You look up at his back and his tangling hair, and ask, “Why not?” Is more than a decade not enough time to be certain that he is the only man you want to marry? 

“I have changed.” He watches a cawing crow fly from an oak to a birch. 

You stand up, catching the leaves on your lap before they flutter down. “I’ve noticed.” How could you not have noticed that the mannerly prince you sewed a shirt for has shifted into an uneasy and traumatized revenant? You take a step forward to stand close beside him. 

The wind blows Loki’s hair forward, nearly concealing his pale face. “I’m not Asgardian.” 

“I know, I sang in the intermission of your tragedy.” And you knew before that, too. 

Thirteen years ago…

_“My father was a farrier...My mother was a gardener. Don’t you wish to wed someone who knows courtly manners, knows diplomacy?”_   
_Loki’s eyes were fixed on your face, soft and green as a forest the day before a fire catches it. “Far more ardently I desire to wed a woman who is clever enough to solve murders, compassionate enough to pity a prince drowning in invitations.”_

Apocalypses and deaths and...and now you are in an old forest in a new realm, and he is the one doubting that you desire him. 

Loki rubs his possibly broken arm, glances at you, and then looks forward again. He visibly swallows, and winces a little. “If you were purchasing a pot,” he says, sounding like a tutor who is trying to explain a subject he himself is sick of studying, “you would not opt for one of inferior clay--let alone one rammed full of filth and cracked two or three times.”

“Loki. You aren’t--”

“A pot. True. But at least do not choose me hastily.” His expression is inscrutable.

You rub your temple. “I chose you thirteen years ago,” you point out, your voice gentle. You hesitate and then slip your arm around him and lightly nestle your cheek against his shoulder. 

Loki lets out his breath and turns toward you, his left hand lightly touching your waist, the other on your shoulder. “Is this a gambit to be dubbed Goddess of Fidelity, my dear?” he asks you, raising an eyebrow.

You dare to reach up and tuck his hair behind his ear. “If I say yes, will you become part of my plot?”

Loki gives you a slight smile, bending his head until he is almost close enough to kiss. “I’m at your call, whether you say yes or no.”

You wrap both arms around him and hug him as closely as you can without a risk of causing him pain, laying your head on his shoulder. “I’ve missed you, Loki,” you murmur.   
Against your palms his shoulder blades relax. He puts his unhurt arm closely around you and brushes a kiss on your forehead. “I will not leave you again,” he states softly, and then, after a long pause, adds something he may have never said before: “...my love.” 


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have started watching a long mystery drama, The Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty, and from this chapter onward, it will probably be a noteworthy influence on this fic.

“You must have been quite a detective, in Asgard.” Brunnhilde locks the small chest into which she has placed the papers with votes on them (mostly votes for Loki), and squeezes it into a drawer rather full of other papers, shaking the drawer to make the papers shift down enough that she can close it. It is six PM, and she, Loki, and you are in her office, a small room with a desk and a bookshelf both heaped with documents and mail. “What’s your strategy?”

Loki repeats what he already told you, that tomorrow you will speak to Thyra’s family and to Father Magnussen, and that the day after that you will interview the smith’s family and apprentices. “As for the following day, its activities will depend upon what I learn from these conferences.”

Brunnhilde nods, seating herself on the edge of her desk. “What about the cliff? Are you going to look for clues there?”

“Judging by the quantity of flowers, half of New Agard has been traipsing there,” Loki says dryly. His back is against the wall, and he is doing a fine job of looking like he is simply standing next to it instead of leaning against it. “Mount a guard on it, if you will...though I suspect the next victim would be killed nearby rather than spared.” 

Brunnehilde huffs out a sigh. “You think we do have a serial killer.” 

“Whose motives involve my father. Precisely.” Loki covers a harsh cough. “Has a party coalesced that deems you stole the throne from Thor?” he asks abruptly. 

Brunnhilde rolls her eyes. “One man. Ulf. He doesn’t think a woman should rule; he doesn’t think someone who isn’t of Bor’s blood should rule; he says in truth Thor never gave me the throne and I’m keeping him chained in the  _ basement _ …. This hall has a crawlspace that would barely fit a child.”

Loki almost laughs. “Are you certain he’s not a Midgardian, inadvertently mixed with our people?” he deadpans.

“Don’t give me hope.” Brunnehilde rubs a tense arm muscle under her tattoo and then slides off the desk and to her feet. “I must go—hosting an ambassador for dinner in five minutes.”

Loki slumps a little as she strides out of the office, and smothers a chain of coughs in his elbow. You step closer to him.“You should rest, Loki. I’ll come back in the morning.” It’s important to state that before he can decide he’s going to walk across New Asgard to your house. 

That that is a possibility you must ward against is...outlandish. Is any of this real? The prince you saw from a distance, muraled, royal, someone you could never know, here in a minuscule, messy office and almost betrothed to you? The outlaw who allegedly committed patricide and attempted fratricide, looking as serenely at you as if he had never harmed a fly? Alive? 

“You sound like M—a mother hen,” Loki deprecates, looking down at you with a faint smile. 

You blink, pulling your mind together. And there is that to remember too. He is orphaned. “Well, what would you think of me, were I not concerned for the health of my nearly betrothed?” you ask, and return his smile. 

That gives him pause; and then, rather than saying what he would think, he takes your hand and kisses it. “I’ll count the hours until your return.”

It occurs to you as you leave the hall that counting the hours sounds very different than resting. You hope he meant it metaphorically. 

* * *

A few hours after dawn, you are knocking on the door of the small wooden house in which Thyra lived with her family. Pumpkins that needed to be picked and put in a root cellar a week ago seed down in its garden; a crow is hopping from one to another as if they were islands. 

A girl, thirteen or so, with long blonde braids and badly over-washed hands opens the door. She greets you by name and then looks past you, her eyes red: “Prince Loki.” She curtseys. 

Loki gives her a polite nod. “May we know your name?”

“Mist. I’m Thyra’s sister.” She takes a step back from the door. “Please come in, my lord. Mother told me you were coming and I want to ask you to do something.” Her voice is high pitched and sounds like it must be sweet, usually. 

You and Loki follow her into the cottage’s central room—whitewashed, red-rugged, oaken-floored, fire-lit—and sit on a bench there. Mist sits down on an ash-wood stool. 

“Are your parents home?” Loki asks. 

Mist shakes her head, anxiously twiddling her thumbs. “No. They thought you would come later, and they went to the….what is the word for where people who worship the God Jesus are buried?”

“Graveyard?” Loki suggests readily. 

Mist shakes her head. “Seminary—ceme—cemetery. They went to pray. Well, Mother went to pray and Father went to fight the priest. But Mother won’t let him. Father thinks the priest told Thyra to jump off the cliff so she could go to Valhalla, but Mother says the priest doesn’t believe people should do that. She thinks Dagmund pushed her.” Mist gulps and starts chewing on the end of her braid “I think so too. So that is what I would like to ask you to do, my lord.”

Loki leans forward. “Might I have particulars?”

“Please turn Dagmund into a fly, and then put him into a spiderweb,” Mist says with the utmost enunciation. Abruptly, her lip trembles, her face crumples, and she dissolves into sobs. “So it—so it will eat—he killed my s-sister!” 

You wish her mother would come back; she needs someone she knows and loves to comfort her. You stand up. “Mist,” you say gently, and try to find the right words. “May I get you water?” you offer.

Mist nods, and you cross the red rug and the oak floor to the table on which a glazed clay pitcher and mugs sit, still trying to think of what to say. What would comfort a child after her sister falls from a cliff? 

When you turn around, Loki is kneeling beside Mist. “I can’t promise I’ll make him a fly,” he says quietly, “since I haven’t yet inflicted that particular shape on anyone. Would a frog do? If it were fed to a heron?”

Mist hiccups, her eyes going wide. “I—I think he  _ looks _ like a frog…” She swallows a sob and takes a deep breath. “Can you really make him be a frog, my lord?” 

“You have my word...if he’s guilty.” Loki stands up, wincing slightly, and re-seats himself on the bench. “Why do you deem Dagmund the culprit?”

Mist takes the water from you and sips it. A drop falls onto her blue frock. “He was going to marry my sister,” she tells Loki. “But then she decided to marry the God Jesus. A nun. She was going to become a nun. And Dagmund called her names I’m not allowed to say. So I think—and Mother thinks—he pushed her over the cliff so she couldn’t marry the God Jesus.”

Feeling queasy, you sit on the bench again, folding your hands on your lap. “Do you know where Dagmund lives?” you ask.

Mist points through the window at a green cottage. “Across the road, with his grandfather. They sell honey.” A man and a woman pass between the green cottage and the window. Mist stands up. “Mother and Father are here.” 

Bos and Sigfrieda argue as they trudge through the door, and do not stop, both presenting evidence to Loki simultaneously and vociferously, tears flowing into Bos’s half-grey beard, Sigfrieda’s hands shaking uncontrollably. 

“—Dagmund said she didn’t deserve to live—”

“—priest is mad—”

“—wanted her to marry him, but she was in—”

“—killed my child because he is a madman! I demand—”

“—must be done—”

Loki has already stood up; he was listening to them, looking from one to the other. Now he raises his hand. They cease talking. “You suspect Dagmund; and you suspect Father Magnussen. Do you have evidence against Dagmund, Sigfrieda?”

Mist puts her chin on her rough, small hands, her eyes round and sad. 

Sigfrieda takes a deep breath. “I heard him say that my daughter deserved to die. And I know he was not with his grandfather that night, for his grandfather was at the house of healing—he ate an accursed Midgardian fruit.”

Loki raises an eyebrow. “Accursed?”

“A ghostly pepper.”

Loki nods, keeping a straight face. “And?”

“That’s all the evidence I have, Lord Loki.” Sigfrieda clutches the back of a wooden chair with one hand, and her wrist with the other. “Will you question him?” 

“We will question everyone who could have committed this crime,” Loki answers, and turns to Bos. “Have you evidence against the—the priest?” He manages to finish his sentence before coughing into his elbow. 

“He is a madman, and he was meeting my daughter alone,” Bos half-growls. 

“Not alone...Kåre was there too,” Mist says diffidently. “Don’t you remember, Father? He was in R—RIA too?”

Bos shakes his head. “He missed meetings. Thyra said so.”

“Which seems unlikely to be the priest’s doing,” Loki points out, sitting down again. “Do you have any other evidence?” 

The only other evidence Bos has is that Father Magnussen said, “Pride goes before a fall.”

All of Thyra’s family have alibis: the night Thyra fell, Mist and Sigfrieda stayed up all night waiting for her, and Bos, who had gone to bed before the time Thyra typically came home, was sleeping in the loft. 

A few moments after Loki closes the door after you, Mist or Sigfrieda or possibly both of them begin wailing. You swallow hard in sympathy.

“They have no evidence,” Loki states, almost under his breath. “Yet we should question Dagmund.” He strides toward the street to cross it, his right hand in a fist behind his back. 

“Will you truly turn Dagmund into a frog?” you ask, halfway across the street. A frigid wind blows into your skirt and through your hair. 

“Of course...if he slew Thyra.” Loki touches your elbow as you step onto the sidewalk. “I don’t lie to children.” 

Brunnhilde might object to extra-judicial frog-shifting; but, you decide, you’ll bring that up if Dagmund is guilty, not when there is hardly any evidence against him. 

Loki pushes open the unlatched gate of the green fence that runs between the green cottage and the road, and then knocks on the cottage’s windowless, oaken door. 


	10. Chapter 10

Dagmund’s grandfather Vald opens the door—a tall man with a long grey beard and piercing, friendly eyes. You have met him before; after you sang at a tavern, he complimented your singing by telling you that you sounded like his deceased wife, whom he emigrated from Vanaheim to marry, and after that he sometimes came to places where you were singing. “Come in, my lord..and my favorite bard. Are you here to speak to my grandson?” 

“I am,” Loki affirms, and walks into the honey shop. “I’m glad to see you well.” You follow him, giving Vald a smile. 

The shop’s floor and walls and ceiling all are knot-dotted pine. Pine shelves hold small and large glass jars of honey, some so small that a single meal would use them up, others so large that one could lose a spoon in them. Barrels stand in a row, full of mead. Beside a pine counter, a grim young man with his dark hair pulled back into a queue and with a cloth tied around his dead, over one eye, is mopping the floor. He sets the mop against the wall. “Lord Loki. Are you here because Sigfrieda is accusing me of killing her daughter?” 

“To some degree,” Loki replies. He studies Dagmund’s face. “Do you have an alibi?”

“I was alone here that night, but I can prove I was here,” Dagmund avers. “My grandfather has bought us these.” He pulls a Midgardian phone out of a pouch on his belt. “He talked to me with moving images every half hour while he was in the house of healing. He saw that I was here, and so did the healers who were tending him.” 

Vald nods, pulling his phone out of his tunic pocket. “He is speaking the truth, my lord.”

Loki raises an eyebrow. “Why did you call him every half hour?”

Vald gives a quiet chuckle. “I had only bought these three days before—the honey harvest was good this year, and Midgardians as well as Asgardians have been buying our mead—and I wanted to use them.”

Loki nods, and looks at Dagmund again. “And why, if you had no objection to remaining awake, were you here rather than with your grandfather?”

Dagmund scratches under the cloth that is covering his eye. (Odd that he and Ulf have eye injuries at the same time….) “I have a quarrel with one of the healers.” His tone is sharp. “He tried to woo Thyra when we were already betrothed.” 

Oh. Could that healer have been angry with Thyra because she was betrothed to someone else? “Was that healer with you that night, Vald?” you ask. 

Vald nods. “From dusk until dawn.”

Loki suppresses a cough. “You both have strong alibis. Is there anyone who you suspect?”

“Nobody,” Vald states. 

“Nobody...but I hope you intend to question the priest,” Dagmund rasps. He takes hold of the mop again. “He deranged my Thyra. I think he drove her to slay herself.” 

“Did she seem desperate?” Loki questions. 

“I wouldn’t know how she  _ seemed _ !” Dagmund’s voice suddenly becomes a near shout. He moves the mop so quickly that it almost knocks a jar of honey off a bottom shelf. 

“He was angry that she was attending RCIA meetings, and angrier that she was pondering vowing virginity,” Vlad says quietly after following you and Loki outside. “But I am certain that he was in our home when she fell.”

Loki nods. “What befell his eye?”

Vlad’s forehead wrinkles. “I know not. A sting? But he’s never covered his eye when he was stung before…. Do you have any more questions, my lord?”

He does not, nor do you. You bid Vlad a good morning and walk downhill toward Father Magnussen’s church.

* * *

The church contains benches and statues, whose attire--oddly enough--seems to be Asgardian raiment rather than Midgardian, or at least modern Midgardian. In Asgard, it would not have been out of place if that woman with a blue wrap over her head were picking apples, or if the man in a white robe with a red cloak were selling chairs. It also contains echoes and red, gold, green, and blue light. 

The church does not, however does not contain Father Magnussen. You and Loki look in every side room and closet and then leave. “He’s probably home; he lives in the house beside the church,” you say, gesturing towards it. 

But the house also does not contain Father Magnussen; you knock on the door several times, but he does not open it. “Perhaps he left to get a midday meal,” you hypothesize, trying not to leap to the conclusion that he has been murdered too. It isn’t a Wednesday...but…

“Perhaps,” Loki says quietly. “But let’s ensure he’s not at the murder site, as a precaution.”

* * *

There is nobody at the murder site or or near it, nothing happening except the cold wind blowing witing flowers for Thyra and fresh ones for Kåre off the precipice.

Loki starts coughing and can’t seem to stop, his shoulders shaking. 

“Oh, I shouldn’t have let you walk so far!” you blurt, wishing you had water with you. 

“— _ Let _ —me?” Loki wheezes, sitting down hard on the pile of stones, almost on top of a bouquet of rue. 

You sigh as you seat yourself on the dry grass at his feet. “That wasn’t the word I meant.”

Loki is still coughing; it is a full two minutes before he ceases. He sits perfectly still for a long moment and then looks down at you, one eyebrow rising. “Does anything I do  _ not _ render you anxious?” 

“Plenty. I’m sorry I’ve vexed you,” you say quietly. 

Loki looks contrite. “You’ve done nothing vexatious, my love.” His fingers brush against your shoulder. 

You rest your head against his leg, almost on his lap. He needs to wait at least a few minutes before walking back to the church, and Father Magnussen probably has not come home yet, if he is buying a midday meal. “Should we wait for him at his church?” 

“Yes. If all is well with him, he will return by eventide.” He tentatively touches your hair, brushing it back from your forehead. “The sign before the church said that some event by the name of Adoration commences tonight; he’ll surely return to prepare for it, or lead it.”

“After we speak with him, would you like to dine at my house?” you ask. “I have some fish for baking.” It is a very mundane conversation to have here where two people were murdered and Odin ascended, but it is better than speaking of those deaths, since if Loki concentrates on them you suspect he will try to hasten down to the church without further rest. 

Loki touches your cheek with the side of a curled finger. “There’s none with whom I’d rather spend the evening. Indeed—” His hand tenses. “Look. At the church.”

You spring to your feet. Since the weather is clear today, you can see the church. A small red car is parked in front of it, a car that does not belong to anyone in New Asgard. 

Loki has risen too. “Is that the priest’s vehicle?” he says, his tone indicating that he has surmised it is not. 

“No. It doesn’t belong to anyone in New Asgard, unless someone just bought it.”

Loki catches hold of your hand and hastens down the hill.

* * *

A Midgardian, perhaps twenty-five years old and wearing a puffy black coat, leans against the red car staring at his phone with a baffled mouth and annoyed eyes.

He looks up as you and Loki (who is now hooded) walk towards him, and makes eye contact with you. “Hello? Do you speak English?”

“I have Allspeak,” you state, and smile reassuringly because he looks like he’s about to run in circles screaming. “Can I help you?” 

“Thanks. I’m a reporter, from  _ The Updater _ ; I’m here to meet the priest, um, Father Magnussen? He said he’d be here all afternoon. But he’s not here. And I’m not even sure if this is the right place. Because he has one of those new phones, with the really exact location tracking? And he shared his location with me so I’d come to the right place; but this shows that he’s going away from the church? Like, nine or ten miles away??  _ Is _ this Father Magnussen’s church?” He stops to breathe.

“It is,” you hastily confirm, your heart thudding. If Father Magnussen told this man, who has travelled from across the ocean, that he would be here...why would he be driving or walking away from New Asgard? “How fast—”

His eyes become round. “ _ Holy _ ! You’re that singer! With the album,  _ Apple Leaves _ ??”

“Yes, that’s mine. Sir, how fast—”

“Can I get a pic of you? Nobody has seen a _ — _ ”

“Sir!” You half-shout. His mouth stops moving. “Father Magnussen may be in danger. How fast is he going? Which direction?”

The report blinks. “Oh. Um. Forty miles an hour, sort of northwest?”

Loki steps forward and says much too calmly, “He’s probably being kidnapped. Would you rather drive or give directions, Midgardian?”

“Whaa?” The reporter steps backward and almost slams into his car.

Loki sighs. “I apologize for the confusion,” he says sardonically. “We are going to follow Father Magnussen. You may either drive or read off directions,” he says, as if he were explaining to a toddler. “Whichever you desire.”

“You can’t commandeer my car. Or my phone? Who do you think you are?”

Loki tilts his head. “Guess,” he purrs.

You clear your throat, the wind cold across your face. “I’ll make you a deal,” you tell the reporter. “Help us chase Father Magnussen, and I’ll let you take images of me and interview me. I haven't been interviewed before.” 

The reporter’s eyes light up. “Deal! But the guy with the Sith costume can’t come.”

You shake your head; you can’t rescue Father Magnusson by yourself. 

Loki’s hood vanishes. “And I’ll offer you the same.” He smirks. 

“Holy ****!” the reporter yells, grabbing a car door handle. He stares at Loki; he stares at his car. He pulls his shoulders back. “Okay, just...I better win a Pulitzer.” 

Loki rolls his eyes and opens the passenger door for you. 

* * *

Blurry cottages and blowing leaves, your stomach feeling like you left it behind at Father Magnussen’s church, the reporter (who is named Tyler Greene) using strong language about halfway through each bend in the road—if this is what car rides are like, you never want to ride in a car again. 

“We’re getting closer! Only about a mile ahead!” Tyler shouts behind you. “Whoa. It’s getting closer...faster than we’re going?”

“They’re driving towards us,” Loki deduces. He has a deathgrip on the steering wheel, and winces every time he turns it left. “Either on this road, or on the parallel one. Watch the latter, love.” 

“Love?” Tyler almost drops his phone. “Are you two in a relationship? Can that be part of the inter—oh. It’s  _ really _ close!”

There are no other vehicles in sight on your road, but a black truck is all but flying towards New Asgard on the other. Loki looks toward it, across level, long grass—and turns the car in a right angle, off the road. “I rented this!” Tyler yelps as the car rushes across the grass toward the other road. With a jounce, Loki steers the car into the same lane as the black truck, only a few yards behind it. 

“The phone is yards away!” Tyler shouts.

“Ulf’s truck,” you add. Three of Odin's sobriquets are painted on the back of it, red runes. The silhouettes of two heads are in it: Ulf and Father Magnussen? Is he taking the priest home, after taking him away? Why? You shift anxiously in your seat. 

Loki stares unblinkingly at the truck, the pedal under his foot almost crushed to the floor. You are keeping up with it easily...and then the car slows. Loki slams the pedal down, but it keeps slowing. “It’s, um, not charged,” Tyler says sheepishly. 

Ulf’s truck roars toward New Asgard, its second passenger still completely unknown. 

Steering uncomfortably with his left hand, Loki flicks off the cover of one of the car’s internal outlets and presses his right forefinger to it, whispering something inaudible. 

Green light flares from every light on the dashboard and glares from the headlights, turning the road ahead pale green. The car careers down the road after Ulf’s truck, which has turned a corner and is not visible. 

“ _ Wow _ ,” Tyler whispers. 

Loki whips the car around the corner. Ulf’s truck has stopped far ahead: it has halted next to the Hall, and a person in a cloak is getting out of its passenger side. The person slams the truck door behind them and runs toward and through one of the Hall’s side doors; Ulf’s truck barrels ahead. 

“Hall,” you and Loki say aloud at the same time. Evidently he is thinking the same as you are: it is probably Ulf driving his truck, but you do not know who is abetting him. 

A few seconds later, Loki swerves onto the grass behind the Hall and skids to a stop. You and Tyler both follow in his wake as he runs toward and through the door the door that the cloaked person used to enter the hall. 

That door leads into the Hall’s kitchen, and the only person in the kitchen is Myrna, who is halfway through scooping the seeds out of ten pumpkins. She is too short to be the person who left Ulf’s truck. 

Loki breaks down into the worst fit of coughing he’s had since you met him. You flinch and put your hand on his arm, looking around for water. Loki motions toward Myrna, who has turned around from her pumpkins and is staring at the three of you, and manages to get out, “—ask—.”

“I’m sorry we've barged in like this,” you tell her hurriedly. “Did anybody enter the kitchen directly before us?”

“Yes,” Myrna says. “But I know not who. Why?” She dries her hands on her apron and pours water into a horn. “Oh, they threw something into the fireplace,” she adds as she walks towards Loki, raising her voice so you can hear her over his unceasing coughs. 

Loki brushes past her, choking back his cough, hurrying toward the fireplace. You follow him and see a small, rectangular object on top of the coals. 

“Huh,” Tyler says. He points at his screen. “This said the phone was really close, and then it stopped showing it at all.”

The small rectangle makes a small snapping noise. 

Loki’s brows fly upward. “Watch out!” he shouts and whirls, turning his back to the fireplace and pulling you against his chest. 

Fiery coals and tiny metal things spray out of the fireplace as Father Magnussen’s phone explodes with a clap like thunder. 

Loki’s arms tighten around you, your face buried against his green tunic and too-cadaverous ribs. 

Silence falls.

Loki releases you and you turn to see Myrna and Tyler both safe, both silently staring at the fireplace and at the embers on the floor. Tyler is holding a frying pan like a racquet. 

“I’ll...get water. So the floor doesn’t catch on fire,” Myrna says numbly, and hurries toward the sink. 

A spark crackles in the fireplace. Tyler screams and flings the frying pan into what is left of the logs in it. 

“Myrna!” Loki calls across the kitchen. “What door—” He breaks down coughing again, doubling over. 

Blood drips from his mouth. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Credits: 
> 
> There is a plotline in which a priest is more or less abducted (and in which other characters track [or try to track] his phone--I can't remember for sure) in a drama I watched some months ago, The Fiery Priest. 
> 
> https://www.quora.com/What-do-you-do-if-you-forget-to-charge-your-electric-car  
> https://www.healthline.com/health/throat-bleeding#infections


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited Dec. 18 to fix a continuity error that my friend Shade_Stark pointed out.

“Loki!” you gasp, feeling like the floor is tilting. You put your hand on his shoulder. “You should sit down; should I bring a healer?” Your voice trembles. 

Loki wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and sits down rather hard on the nearest stool. “Don’t fret, love,” he says softly, and looks at Myrna, who is trying to find a mop. “Myrna, what door--”

A door flies open and Brunnhilde strides in, ducking under some drying mint. Tyler gapes. “What exploded?”

“The local priest’s phone” Loki answers before you can. “He’s apparently been kidnapped by Ulf and an accomplice. Capture Ulf and—interr—” He chokes back a cough and forces himself to stand up. “Interrogate him. He drove south.” 

Brunnhilde listens intently, and then looks from Loki’s bloody mouth to the blood on the floor and back again. “I’ll catch him. Go rest, now.” She turns to Myrna. “Put the fire out first; clean up the blood afterwards. I’ll send people to help you.” Out of the room she rushes, shaking the floor a little.

“I don’t know what door, my lord,” Myrna replies, apparently guessing the rest of Loki’s question, and pours a pitcher of water onto the spark-spangles.Tyler starts taking pictures of the fireplace. 

Loki looks down at you with an exhausted smile when you take his hand. “Where’s your chamber?” you ask.

* * *

In Loki’s chamber are oaken walls, a bed, a washstand, and a vessel of water. He closes the door behind the two of you and sits wearily on the bed, your hand still in his. “You should go,” he says, his voice low. 

“If you wish,” you answer, “but I’d rather stay, once I’ve sent someone to bring a healer.” Much rather; the idea of leaving him alone after he coughed up blood is quite anxiety-inducing. “May I, please?” 

Someone knocks on the door before Loki can reply; you answer it. Tyler stands in the hallway. “Is this a good time to interview you two?” he asks, optimistically.

You blink. Did he not notice that Loki looks like he’s at death’s door? “No...rather, please tell someone to send a healer here.” You look back over your shoulder at Loki, who nods. “A healer who can treat someone who coughed up blood.”

Tyler makes a nauseated face. “I’ll tell someone.” He trots off down the hallway, and you close the door and go to Loki, whose head is drooping. Dark, tangled hair falls from its queue and brushes against his lap. 

You caress his back. “You should lie down, dearest.” Without a smile, without an objection, without even taking off his boots, Loki lies down, his lips pressed together. He must be feeling quite unwell. You pick up a woolen blanket that is across the foot of the bed and lay it over him. “There.”

Loki gives you a lopsided smile. “I assure you, love, I didn’t awaken with the intention of being such a nuisance.” 

Rather limply, you sit down beside him. _Today you interviewed multiple people, tried to halt a kidnapping, drove a vehicle from another realm, and protected me from an explosion, and you’re calling yourself a nuisance because you...dripped blood on a floor and needed, but didn’t even request, a blanket._ “You wouldn’t call _me_ a nuisance if _I_ coughed up blood.”

Loki’s brows draw together at the very concept, but all he says is, “I would not.” He clears his throat. “I take it we agree Ulf is a malefactor.”

“Yes,” you say with a nod. “Unless someone decided to steal his truck for this, which seems unlikely. And he is probably the one who kept driving. We’ll know that for sure if Brunnhilde catches him.”

The corner of Loki’s mouth twitches up. “I wouldn’t want to be the one fleeing from her.” He almost coughs. “It’s impossible to know whether his accomplice threw the priest’s phone into the fire merely to obliterate fingerprints or because of its contents. But it’s plain the accomplice either dwells or labors in this hall. Every home in New Asgard would have a burning fire on this cold day; it would be nonsensical for this person to invade the hall kitchen in search of a fire unless—” He breaks off into coughing, and you bring him water.

“Unless they were on their way to their room or their employment,” you finish, and he nods. 

“Hrist lives here,” you say, cautiously. 

“And opened my door an hour after midnight. She told me she thought it was the door to the latrine.” Loki’s tone is dry. 

You grimace. “Those are on the other end of the hall, and they have arched doors, not rectangular ones.”

“Precisely,” Loki enunciates, and adds in a whisper. “Has she suffered an eye injury?”

“What?” You keep your voice quiet. “No, not that I know of—oh, was she wearing an eyecovering like Ulf and-and Dagmund?!”

Loki gives you a mirthless smile. “However did you guess?” he deadpans. “Over the right eye...just like her god, my father.” 

Dismay twists in your stomach, your eyes widening, and you whisper, “Are they sacrificing people to him?”

Loki coughs into his sleeve and looks at you with somber eyes. “Or in his memory. Every Wednesday...every Odin’s Day.”

You draw in a shuddering breath, and move closer to Loki. “Father Magnussen...today isn’t Wednesday. Do you think he’s alive?”

“If they wished to kill him, they’d have taken him captive on this coming Wednesday.” Loki presses his lips together, pulling on a loose thread of the blanket. “We lack proof.”

Before you can say anything else, someone knocks on the door and he—Troels—asks if he may come in.

* * *

“... _don’t do things that make you cough_ , my lord,” Troels beseeches after examining Loki. “You’ve broken blood vessels in your throat. _Many_ of them. And you are overtaxing your strength.”

Loki raises an eyebrow. “And?”

“That’s all, my lord.” Troels begins washing his hands.

Loki sits up and puts his feet on the floor; the instant before he would stand up, Troels raises a soap-dripping hand. “My lord! You need to rest, at least until tomorrow morning.”

“A little bleeding and weariness is hardly fatal.”

“Not at once, my lord. But you will...I’m afraid you will become more unwell if you do not rest. It’s like….” He hesitates, trying to think of a simile. “Like the floor I saw one of the cooks pouring water on my way in,” he says, and smiles happily as he dries his hands, glad he has thought of one. “We pour water on sparks before they catch houses on fire, we extinguish houses on fire before they can burn down—” He freezes, setting the towel down, and finishes almost too quietly to hear: “towns. And-and we rest before we collapse.” His face is as red as...well, as the fire that burned Asgard after Loki conjured up Surtur of Muspellheim. 

An awkward silence. 

Loki looks at him with one brow raised and a touch of mirthless mischief in his eyes. 

Troels turns more deeply red. “I-I—didn’t mean to allude—We all know the Lord Thor condoned your choice to summon him, my lord.”

Loki blinks, tilting his head. “That’s common knowledge?” he says tonelessly. 

Troels nods emphatically, swooping his cloak off its hook. “Very common, my lord! Ah—may I be excused? I have others to examine.” 

After he leaves, Loki clears his throat. “Is that truly what the people think? That I opted to burn our realm and my brother merely retroactively condoned it?” He lifts his eyes from his hands and fixes them on your face. “Did Thor so inform you?”

“No!” you answer, quickly and honestly. “He never talked about Ragnarok, that I heard. Nobody does, in truth,” you add, and swallow hard as a lump rises in your throat. _Asgard turned into a facsimile of Muspelheim in a quarter hour._ Loki leans toward you, concern entering his eyes. You draw a deep breath and continue,“So I know not what anyone thinks happened, except Lif and myself. We both saw you and your brother conversing; we’ve both always thought you chose it jointly. Is that true?” You hands are shaking on your lap, from sympathy or from remembering the flames and….

Loki hesitates. “One could say so.” He turns so he is almost facing you, and takes your hands in his. “Do you wish to know more?” 

“Yes, but not today. Brunnhilde will be back with Ulf at any moment...I hope.”

Loki lets out his breath. “And then we must extrapolate what we can from whatever confession he is willing, or unwilling, to give.” 

“It doesn’t seem likely he’ll confess.”

Loki turns away to cough, and then looks at you again. “I can read memories, if you recall.”

You'd almost forgotten that. “That...will be useful for solving this,” you say. He could release your hand, touch your forehead, and know anything you have ever done or seen. He could do so to anyone. You cringe as you hear how nervous you sound. It’s preposterous to be serene about the fact that Loki can—and did—summon Surtur (and has been dead three times, and was the Allfather, and has killed….) and then become discomposed by remembering that he can read memories. But you are, regardless, discomfited.

Loki opens his hands, letting go of yours. “I don’t suppose you can pretend I'm merely proficient at questioning,” he says dryly. A little blood is still on his cheek. “He almost certainly will know where the priest is, and whether his fellow eyepatch-wearers are accessories to murder.” 

You nod, folding your arms tightly. A cult, murders, kidnapping, blood dripping from Loki’s mouth, the snap in the fireplace, Thyra’s sister crying, eyepatches, Loki reading memories...you’ve hurt Loki’s feelings…. The knots in the wooden walls become blurry; you blink. “And that might end this mystery, and prevent any more sacrifices,” you say quietly, and give him an unsteady smile. “And then you can rest better.” 

Loki studies your expression, compunction flickering across his face. “With my bride in my arms, I hope,” he says gently. “Your memories entirely a secret, except those of which you tell me.”

Your throat unknots, and you smile more warmly. “I’m not afraid you’ll read my memories, Loki.”

“Then why did it distress you to remember that I could?” he asks, without sarcasm. “Have you begun to deem it intrinsically evil?”

You unfold your arms and clasp your hands, trying to think of a clear, honest answer. “Today has been too eventful,” you decide, simply. “Remembering this and imagining it was the...the berry that almost broke the basket.” 

Loki laughs softly at your metaphor, and lies down again, turning his head to look up at you. “Then I’ll verify that your day has been uneventful before reminding you of my ability to bring statues to life,” he states, straight-faced.

You almost fall off the edge of the bed. “How in the eight realms—“ 

Loki smirks, a twinkle in his eyes. 

You laugh, shaking your head, and shift the way you are sitting so you are facing him. “On the topic of events, I haven’t thanked you yet for shielding me from the explosion.”

He makes a dismissive gesture. “It was hardly a noteworthy detonation.”

“We didn’t know it wouldn’t be.” You brush a few strands of black hair away from his eyes, and he smiles. ”Thank you, dearest.” 

“Of course.”

“But I hope it won’t always take an explosion for you to initiate a hug,” you add fondly. 

Loki ponders that for a moment and then his smile grows, laugh lines appearing. He reaches up, slips his arms around you, and pulls you down to him so you are lying on the blanket that is over his chest, your head on his shoulder, his throat warm against your cheek. He keeps his uninjured arm firmly around you. 

You laugh softly, startled but delighted, and do your best to hug him despite the bed obstructing you from wrapping your arms around him.

Loki kisses your forehead. “How short can a betrothal be?” he murmurs. 

Warmth floods your face. “How much time will you spend asking me and finding someone who can wed others?” you counter-query. 

“Perhaps an hour,” Loki says without hesitation. 

“Then it can be an hour long,” you say simply, smiling. 

Loki slips his injured arm around you too, and—before you can must up the heart to tell him he shouldn’t be using it—asks, “Do you wish to be wed by Asgardian law, Midgardian, or—” 

He stops short as someone knocks heavily on the door. You both sit up, and you answer the door. 

Brunnhilde stands in the hallway, eyes bright, one of her braids coming unwoven. “Caught him!” she tells you both. “Turns out he has Einherji training. He’s confessed to both murders, but he’s a clam about where he imprisoned the priest. I called the Norwegian police; they’re seeking him. Are you up to questioning Ulf, Loki?”

Loki has already stood up, and he strides towards the door. “Of course. And well done, Brunnhilde.”

Brunnhilde raises her hand to stop him. “I don’t need mentorly praise.”

Loki raises an eyebrow. “It’s what I’d have told Thor. Where is the prisoner?”

“He’s going to be here, and you are going to sit down again and wait for him. I do not want to explain to your brother that you came back to life and then died of exhaustion all while he was gone.” 

The corner of Loki’s mouth quirks up, and he sits on the edge of the bed again. “The last thing New Asgard needs is a battle between it’s monarch and the God of Thunder.” 

Brunnhilde rolls her eyes. “I’ll bring him.” She closes the door behind her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Credit to https://www.healthline.com/health/throat-bleeding#infections.


	12. Chapter 12

You fold the blanket that you laid over Loki earlier and set it at the foot of the bed, and then move to stand by the wall, hands clasped. Loki looked at you questioningly, and you explain, “I don’t think my sitting next to you would be helpful for interrogating Ulf. I’m a  _ bard _ and I’m wearing a gown with embroidery. I’d spoil the effect.”

The corner of Loki’s mouth twitches up. “I’m sure I could incorporate you into the scene...but do as you wish.” Footsteps are coming closer in the hallway. Loki sits up straighter and smooths his hair back; his eyes narrow. 

The door swings open and Brunnhilde pushes Ulf in. His hands are in small manacles behind his back, and he has a black eye. When he sees Loki, he spits on the floor. “I’m an Asgardian. I can’t be interrogated by a Frost Giant.”

Loki scans him over from head to toe. 

“You’re  _ going _ to be interrogated by one,” Brunnhilde declares. She closes the door and leans against it. “Ask away, Lord Loki.” 

Loki stares into Ulf’s face. “Did you kill Thyra?”

Ulf juts out his golden-bearded chin. “I did. She was walking; I captured her, dragged her to the precipice, and pushed her.”

You swallow hard, imagining being Thyra--Ulf’s strong hands grabbing you, hauling you across grass and stones and sticks, seeing the edge wax closer and closer, being shoved into the air, dropping. 

“What of Kåre?” Loki asks coolly.

Ulf’s shoulder twitches. “I killed him too.”

“How?” 

“Dragged him, pushed him off.”

Loki represses a cough. “Consistent.” He is as calm as one might be while asking someone how they carried out two repairs or planted two herbs. “And why did you kill them?”

Ulf takes a slamming step forward. “They betrayed Asgard. They worshiped the accursed Midgardian god. I killed them in the Allfather’s honor, on the day he ascended.” 

_ He probably would have killed Lif next _ , you realize, and press your back against the wall as your tenseness escalates to subtle trembling. But you keep your face calm. 

Loki raises an eyebrow. “I think Father would have preferred you refrain from reducing our already more than decimated population,” he comments blandly. “I assume you took the priest captive because he led them astray. Where is he?”

“In Niflheim,” Ulf says without hesitation. His shoulder twitches. “And in the sea, with lead tied to his ankles.”

Brunnhile mutters a curse and you swallow hard. Father Magnussen was a kind man, according to Salvador and Lif, and drowning is an appalling death. You hope Ulf killed him before sinking him, but it seems unlikely. 

“What role did your allies play in his drowning?” Loki demands. He stands up, a handsbreath taller than Ulf. “Your fellow eye-covering adorers of my father.“

Ulf tries to spit in his face. “He’s not your father, Jotun.” 

Loki’s eyes narrow. “He was not the Allfather you lionize.”

Ulf tries to rip his hands out of his manacles and fails. “Nobody helped me.”

“Somebody left your vehicle and entered this hall.” Loki leans toward Ulf. “Believe me, I will know their name by torture if not by inquisition.” 

Ulf bares his teeth in a smile. “Torture me to death so I will ascend to Valhalla.” 

Brunnhilde scoffs.

Fear enters Ulf’s uncovered eye, but he does not look at her. “The person who left was my lover,” he tells Loki. “She cleans the hall. I met her on my way back from drowning the priest. Gave her transport.” 

Loki walks around Ulf until he is behind him, and tilts his head as he looks down at Ulf’s manacled hands. “You said you dragged the smith to the precipice,” he states. “Tell me how you captured him and how you dragged him.”

Ulf turns around to face Loki, almost losing his balance. “I knocked him out with a blow and dragged him by the feet.” 

Loki laughs quietly. “He was almost twice your weight at Ragnarok, and the Lady Brunnhilde has assured me he had not grown thin since that cataclysm.” His fingers clench on Ulf’s shoulder. “Either you did not kill him, or you had an accomplice. Which?” 

Ulf steps back so quickly that he almost stomps his heel onto Brunnhilde’s toes. “I’m an Asgardian, Jotun. You couldn’t drag twice your weight, but maybe by the gift of the Allfather I’m mightier--”

His voice cuts off as Loki extends his hands and slides them through the air in curves that are mirror images of each other and a casket appears, shining as blue as the root of a candle’s flame. “Loki!” Brunnhilde exclaims, eyes widening. 

Loki’s hands become the color of the casket’s light. 

Ice avalanches from the Casket of Ancient Winters to Ulf’s feet, freezing them to the floor, and speeds upwards, clenching around his legs, swallowing up his arms, clamping around his neck. He violently attempts to writhe. He cannot. 

Cold air surrounds your legs and chills your hands. You wrap your arms around yourself, eyes fixed on Loki’s blue face. Ridges as slender as the strokes in a pen-and-ink drawing trisect his forehead and cant across his cheeks. 

The avalanche ends. Loki observes Ulf’s attempts to move a muscle, and then—holding the casket one-handed—steps closer to him and snaps off his eyepatch. “You are not.” He turns to Brunnhilde, raising an eyebrow. “Are Jotuns  _ personae non gratae _ in New Asgard?” 

Brunnhilde blinks. “Why the Niflheim are you speaking Latin? No, I don’t have a problem with you. I have a problem with you carrying that Casket.” 

Loki smiles mirthlessly. “I assume you wish to lock it up in a vault secreted in this mighty hall’s nonexistent basement.”

She lifts a finger in warning. “It doesn’t need to be in this dimension. Don’t let me see it again, unless New Asgard is attacked.” 

Green light beams; the casket vanishes, though Loki’s hands are still clenched to hold its handles. He smirks at her. “Better?”

Brunnhilde groans. “Keep interrogating.” 

Loki turns back to Ulf, who is still failing to writhe and whose eyes are full of horror. “I need not. Not if I read his memories of the smith’s death and the priest’s capture.” He lifts his blue fingers toward Ulf’s mottled forehead. 

“Stop!” Valkyrie orders, her voice much harsher than it was when she protested th casket. “That may not be done in New Asgard.” 

Loki’s hand freezes an inch away from Ulf’s fair hair. “It’s less lethal than torture.”

Brunnhilde takes a stride forward and grips Loki’s wrist. “It’s less  _ decent _ ,” she hisses.

Loki shakes his head and wrenches his wrist out of her hand. As she rubs her chilled palm, he touches his fingers to the side of Ulf’s neck. Ulf whimpers. “Your father froze to death in Jotunheim, didn’t he?” Loki asks quietly. Ice translucently rises, glossing over Ulf’s hair, over his cheeks, down over his forehead. Ulf’s eyes are as round as the eyepatch under Loki’s boot. “And you will smother in Jotun ice, unless you render unto me your accomplice’s name.” 

Ice covers Ulf’s eyes...his bearded chin...the bridge of his nose…. It surrounds his mouth and nostrils. 

Ulf screams in terror. “I’ll tell you! May the Allfather forgive me! My accomplice is the—”

The small window to your side, a yard away from you, shatters.

A dagger handle sticks out of the side of Ulf’s head. 

Blood wanders down the ice that circumscribes him. 

Brunnhilde and Loki spring back, she towards the door, he towards you. He is beside you now, between you and the window. 

Brunnhilde points at the dagger. “That’s—mine.” 


	13. Chapter 13

Brunnhilde and Loki glance at one another. “Hrist,” she says, and races out the door. Loki turns back to you, his hands unclenched, his face ivory. “Don’t stay here,” he warns you. “Find an inner room and abide there until I return.” You nod mutely and he runs after Brunnhilde, his coughs echoing in the hallway. 

You are alone in a room with a murdered murderer. The ice around him is beginning to melt. Blood-mixed water runs along one of the crevices between the floorboards. You step over the rivulet as you walk past Ulf’s body, trying not to look at it and ducking so you cannot be seen through the window. 

They would have killed Lif this coming Wednesday. There can be no doubt about it. You close the door behind you, eyes unfocussed as you comprehend that. She has married a Midgardian man. She was considering joining Father Magnussen’s church. She is undeniably the next person who would have fallen from that precipice. Your empty stomach—you have not had lunch—lurches. 

And then, as you grip the doorknob of an inner room where documents are stored, the thought fills your mind that if Hrist, or whoever the knife-thrower was, knows that Brunnhilde and Loki are chasing her and that she will not be able to kill Lif on Odin’s day, she might kill her today. 

Lif walks home from her painting work now, halfway between lunchtime and dinnertime.

Heart thudding, you run away from the inner room and toward an exterior door. 

* * *

Across New Asgard you run, gasping in air, lifting your skirt up to your knees so you don’t trip on it. Uphill, downhill. People looking at you, calling to you. You dodge a truck, a man, a curly hound. Cold wind blows through your hair and past your legs. 

There. There is the road on which Lif walks home. And there she comes, a bounce in her step, blue-tipped braids swaying, Inge Maria in a carrier on her back. Panting, you thud across the patch of wild strawberries that lie between you and her road. “Lif! Lif, you—you need to go—another way.”

She stares at you, her eyes blue and wide. “What in the nine realms is going on? Has there been an accident? Are you all right?”

You catch hold of her wrist and tug her towards a small sidepath that runs into the yellow-leaved woods. She follows you, blinking. Inge Maria babbles. 

“Loki and Brunnhilde are trying to catch someone who was helping Ulf kill people,” you say quietly and hastily, a few yards into the woods. Leaves crunch under your and Lif’s boots. “It might be Hrist. Whoever it is killed Ulf. And Ulf said that he killed Thyra and Kåre because they became Christians, so I’m afraid Hrist might try to kill you, since you married a Midgardian, and she probably knows you walk on that road.” You stop talking, though not walking, to breathe.

Lif twists the end of her braid. There is green paint under her fingernails and in her eyebrows and on her rose and teal striped frock. “Thank you for coming,” she breathes after a moment. “Where should we go?”

Not to her house, since Hrist might wait there. “Let’s go through the woods and then to the back door of the house of healing,” you decide. “I can’t think of why she’d expect you to go there, and it’s near the Hall, which she was running  _ away _ from.” 

Lif nods and you walk quickly and silently for a few moments, leaves dropping on your hair and skirts. One falls on Inge’s head and you lift it off. She giggles.

“I hope the soup I left simmering doesn’t burn,” Lif says, tucking strands of hair behind her ear. 

You nod sympathetically. “I need to feed Aster.” You stop short. “Lif where’s Salvador today?” If they killed Father Magnussen, they might also want to kill Salvador….

Lif smiles. “He’s away, meeting a lawyer friend who suddenly flew in from Arizona. He won’t be back until tomorrow morning. So he’s safe. And—” She stops short. “What’s that noise?” 

A motor roars in front of you, sounding different than Ulf’s truck or Tyler’s car. Inge Maria starts to cry and Lif shushes her. 

“Let’s leave the road,” you decide, and hold up a branch so Lif and her baby can walk into the woods. You doubt Hrist is riding in or on whatever is making that sound, but it is hard to be sure. 

The two of you are many yards into the woods, underbrush obscuring you, by the time the mechanism making the sounds rolls down the hill; it is going fairly slowly. You both look back to see a dark-haired woman astride an intricate, matte black motorcycle, a slumped, blond man in a dark robe riding behind her. 

“Is that Father Magnussen?!” Lif blurts. 

The woman looks toward the woods and you blink in surprise. “ _ That’s Lady Sif!”  _ She has never come to New Asgard before. 

Before she is past, before you and Lif decide whether or not to come out, Hrist races into sight from the opposite direction, her white hair flowing behind her, her mouth open, a dagger in her hand. 

Sif skids to a stop, and in an instant shoves down something that makes her motorcycle keep standing up and leaps off of it, standing in front of Hrist. “Stop! What’s happening?” Hrist lifts the dagger and springs toward Sif. Sif grabs her wrist. “Are you chasing someone, or are they chasing you?” she demands. 

“Release me, in the Allfather’s name!” Hrist tries to grab a dagger from the belt of Sif’s black tunic; Sif grips that wrist in her other hand. 

“Explain yourself, Hrist.” 

Brunnhilde rounds the corner, sees them, and slows to a jog. “You must be Lady Sif. I’ve seen your portrait. Don’t release her; she’s a murderer.” 

“Who are you?” Sif asks warily. 

Brunnhilde pushes her sleeve up over her elbow and holds out her Valkyrie-tattoed arm. “A valkyrie. And the Allmother, now.” 

Sif gives her a courteous nod and forces Hrist’s arms behind her back. “Father Magnussen told me of you.” She looks toward the slumped man on the motorcycle. 

Brunnhilde rips the dagger out of Hrist’s hand, and looks at it while Sif puts manacles on Hrist, who is trying and failing to kick her in the shins. “This is mine too.”

“Too?” 

“She killed her fellow suspect with my other dagger.”

“I sent him to Valhalla,” Hrist rasps. 

Lif and you have both been standing petrified, but now Lif hurries towards the road, toward Father Magnussen. You follow in her wake, your thoughts chaos.  _ The priest’s alive—he looks sick or hurt—where’s Loki?—why is the Lady Sif here?—how did she find the priest?— _ _ where is Loki _ _?? _

Lif reaches Father Magnussen and touches his shoulder. “Father. Are you all right?”

He lifts his head; his face is covered in bruises and he looks nauseated. All the same, he smiles at Lif. “Lif! I’m fine, thanks be to God and to the Lady Sif. I was kidnapped and drugged. And beaten. Well, now I’m stating the obvious.” He laughs quietly. 

“You need to go to the healers,” Lif tells him. As you walk toward Brunnhilde, you hear him say that that is where Lady Sif was taking him. 

You clear your throat as you reach Brunnhilde, who is raising her voice over Hrist praying to Odin to ask Sif where she found Father Magnussen. Brunnhilde looks at you, and you ask, “Where is Loki?”

She nods toward the direction from which Sif came. “He should be here at any moment. He was going through the woods so we could trap Hrist between us.”

“Thank you,” you say, and take off sprinting in that direction, your legs hurting. Lif will take care of Father Magnussen; Sif and Brunnhilde will stop Hrist from escaping. But Loki is apparently running through underbrush when he should be resting, so you should tell him he can slow his pace. 

Within moments, Loki darts out of the woods, as quietly and suddenly as deer leap in front of vehicles. You raise your hand to stop him. “Loki! They caught her!” 

He slows to a halt. “They? Who—” Coughs rack his body. At the inside of his elbow, his sleeve is bloodsoaked; blood trickles from the corner of his mouth. 

You forget to breathe. “ _ Loki _ !” 

“It looks worse than it is. Who caught her?” He takes your hand and resumes walking, but you remain where you are. He looks back at you questioningly. 

You pull a clean handkerchief out of your pocket. “Hold still, dearest.” Reaching up, you dab away as much of the blood from under his mouth as will come off. 

Loki moves a bit closer to you, bending his head. “Are you not disturbed?” You look up at him, nonplussed. “I immured a man in ice, two yards away from you”

You wrap the clean part of the handkerchief around the bloody part and push it back into your pocket. “I was expecting worse, since you were interrogating a murderer who was trained to bear torture and who was a fanatic.”

Loki tilts his head. “Your serenity is unfailing.” He lifts your chin with a cold but gentle finger and looks into your eyes. “Is it pretence?” 

“Pretence?” Why must he choose such odd times to converse with you on confusing and grave matters? “Truly, I do not think freezing a man is more disturbing than decapitating him, and I dare say most Asgardian warriors have done  _ that _ .” You reach up and touch his cheek. “I’m not good at acting, Loki. If I were distressed, you would be able to tell.” 

He turns his head and lightly kisses your palm, and then takes a step back. “Who caught Hrist?”

“The Lady Sif.”

Loki draws in his breath. 

“She found Father Magnussen—he’s alive and conscious—and then she captured Hrist with Brunnhilde’s help.” 

“Quite an entrance,” Loki summarizes. The cold wind blows his hair into his eyes, and he brushes it back. “I doubt she’ll be glad to see me.” 

* * *

Whether Lady Sif will be glad to see Loki or not remains undetermined that afternoon: she has already left to take Father Magnussen to the healers when you and Loki reach the others. Brunnhilde and Loki follow in her wake, taking Hrist to the hall; tomorrow, Loki will interrogate her and will question Father Magnussen if the latter is well enough to converse. 

You and Lif decide that you will sleep in her house tonight; being alone in a house with nobody except a baby or a cat does not seem like a pleasant idea, since you are not yet sure whether Ulf and Hrist had more allies. On the way there, you stop at your cottage to pick up Aster and her food, and then you and Lif begin to cook a combination of lunch and dinner while Aster climbs on the couch and Inge Maria sleeps in her cradle.

“Do you think Ulf and Hrist were the only murderers?” Lif asks, her hands shaking a little as she tears up greens to put into the soup. Steam from it fogs up the windows. 

You hesitate, stirring beige barley. “They could have been. I hope they were. But...I’m not sure that they were. There are more people who have started wearing eyepatches. And it’s confusing that they kidnapped Father Magnussen but didn’t kill him.”

“Maybe they wanted to kill him on Wednesday,” Lif suggests, chewing on her lower lip. 

“Maybe.”  _ But if they did want to kill him on Wednesday, why didn’t they capture him on Wednesday or Tuesday? _ You give her a sidehug. “Even if they aren’t the only murderers, they’re the mightiest ones—a valkyrie and an Einherji—and Hrist is likely the leader.” 

Lif nods, and manages to smile at you. “Salvador and I were thinking of going to visit his grandparents in San Antonio de la Cal next month, and before he left today he said he was thinking we should go now. I would rather go next month; I haven’t finished my murals. But, well….” 

You squeeze her shoulder and then take the barley to the sink to drain the water out of it. Steam warms your face as the soft grains pour into the strainer. “Loki’s going to question Hrist and Father Magnussen tomorrow. I’ll let you know if he finds out whether there are any more malefactors.” 

Lif thanks you, and starts chopping an onion. “Are you planning to marry him?” she asks.

You walk back to the stove with the drained barley and pour it into the soup. “Yes, soon.” 

Lif sighs. “He’ll make your life chaos.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspiration for Lady Sif’s motorcycle and outfit: https://www.livingmgz.com/glamour/hot-wheels-when-ladies-love-their-motorcycles/36.html


	14. Chapter 14

An hour after dawn, you wake up because someone is knocking on the front door of Lif and Salvador’s house. You rise wearily—almost woozily—and go to the nearest window. Between white and red striped curtains you peek, and see Loki, standing very straight in a dark, hooded cloak, looking expectantly at the door. His mouth looks sad. 

“Loki, is something wrong?” you ask when you open the door. You shiver in the cold air; your night attire is decent but not warm enough for standing in a doorway in autumn. You step back so he can come in, and close the door behind him. 

He looks at you and gives you a fond smile. There are darker circles under his eyes than there were yesterday. “On the contrary. I’ve already interrogated Hrist, and she has admitted inciting Ulf to kill Thyra and to helping him kill Kåre and kidnap the priest. And there was nothing unlikely in her accounts.”

Two criminals, one dead, one imprisoned. Nobody else will die. New Asgard is safe. You clasp your hands together. “Do you think the murders are solved now?” 

Loki hesitates, lightly scratching his palm. “They may be. Hrist claims they kidnapped the priest before Wednesday, despite intending to kill him on that day, because she had noted that he often leaves New Asgard and wanted to ensure they had possession of him; is it true that he often leaves?”

You try to remember. “I think Lif said that he often visits his mother, on days when there isn’t Mass. And his mother doesn’t live in New Asgard.”

“Then it may be true. Are you ready to call on him?”

“After I dress, yes,” you say. “Though since he is recovering he probably shouldn’t be awakened at six in the morning.” You blink. “...Why have you already interrogated Hrist? Were you up at five?”

He sits on the couch, the light from the window making his tired eyes look like seaglass. “I interrogated her last night. This morning I’ve done nothing save grant the Midgardian his photograph and interview.” 

“Did you  _ sleep _ ?” you ask lightly, expecting him to say that he did. 

He looks at his hands. “Why would I not?” 

He should be resting but he not only is running—literally and figuratively—all over New Asgard but also is staying awake all night, at least last night. Will he heal? Or will he become more severely injured? 

Before you can decide what to say, he continues, pensively: “Last night I also paid Thyra’s family a visit. Mist sees no need to make Ulf a frog, since he is deceased.” He looks up at you. “I mean to urge Hrist’s execution. She is too perilous to our people.” 

You flinch, but nod. 

“But there’s no need to discuss that at present.” He brushes hair away from his eyes. “I’ll wait for you to dress.” 

* * *

By the time you have dressed, told Lif where you are going, and fed Aster, it is six-thirty. In the entry room, arms folded, Loki is studying one of Lif’s paintings, which she has hung between two windows: a landscape of Asgard, with shops and boarding houses in the foreground and the palace, Valaskjalf, behind them. 

“Do you remember the hue of the light?” he asks quietly as you come within speaking distance. “As golden as a sunset, or flames. Perhaps we should have taken it as an omen.” 

You stand beside him. “I remember,” you say, your tone soft. “Though it has been seven years since Ragnarok.”

“Only a few weeks, for me.” He smiles unsteadily, still gazing at the painting. “Gold cannot burn...the formless remnants of Valaskjalf’s walls must yet be suspended in the Ginnungagap.” 

“I remember you ran into the palace—and then Surtur burst out of it, and the Statesman ascended.” You wrap your arms around yourself, remembering the gasps of relief, the wails of sorrow, the sounds of a man losing consciousness, a child screaming, screaming, screaming… “I was carrying a baby,” you remember. “A twin. Their mother was carrying the other. We were separated but we found each other. It took so long to find each other that when I looked out of a window again, I couldn’t see Asgard’s remains.” A lump rises in your throat. “Lif and I couldn’t decide if dying in a fire was a glorious death. I cried myself sick, for you and for everyone. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to say so much...it’s the wrong time….” You wipe a tear off your cheek, clenching your other hand. You always end up crying if you discuss Ragnarok. 

Loki closes his arms around you, letting you bury your face against his shoulder. “I sought you, after I entered the Statesman,” he says, his voice low. “When I found you, you were at the other end of a corridor. I was never entirely sure if you saw me.” 

You nestle closer to him, lifting a hand to stroke his hair. “I saw you. I heard a rumor that you were on the ship and so I was looking for you.” For a moment, you are silent, remembering that glimpse: Loki at the other end of the dark corridor, his face colorless, his green cloak hanging from one shoulder. “I wish I’d spoken to you.” Your throat tightens. 

“I could not have given you much, then.” 

“I don’t love you for what you can give me.” 

He tightens his arms around you, pressing a kiss on your forehead, and then releases you. “Let’s ensure the sparks of zealotry are well extinguished in this new realm.”

* * *

When you enter the house of healing, Troels walks down the hallway to meet you. “Are you here to see Father Magnussen, my lord?”

“We are; how does he fare?”

Troels smiles, but before he can answer, a door swings open and the Lady Sif strides out, clad in black from neck to toe. Her warm smile vanishes when she sees Loki. “Prince Loki. The Lady Brunnhilde informed me of your presence.”

Loki stands straighter. “Doubtless the pinnacle of your homecoming.” 

Troels hurriedly walks away. 

Sif tosses her dark hair over her shoulder, defiance in her eyes. “You’re still a mocker.” 

“Obviously.” Loki gives her a slight smile. “Thor will be glad you’ve returned.” 

Sif takes a step closer. “He would have been gladder had you not usurped the Allfather’s throne and  _ exiled me _ .” 

Loki’s brows fly upwards. “He’s grown so weary of your unsought idolization that your death would gladden him? Or perhaps he’s comprehended that you are a traitor — ” He smothers a cough. 

Sif’s hands clench. “Of all those in New Asgard you are least worthy to be here!” 

Loki smirks. “I stay the same.”

Sif stares at him viciously, but after a moment she lets out her breath. “Lady Brunnhilde told me you died for Thor.”

“Yes?”

She lifts her chin. “For Thor and for New Asgard, I’m willing to make a truce with you.” 

Loki ponders that. “You’ve become prudent, Lady Sif. I accept.” 

Sif nods. “I found Father Magnussen in a small house of stone and wood, to the north of the town. He was alone in it.” Her gaze goes to you, and she smiles a little. “I remember you; are you still a bard?” 

You realize that you have been holding your breath. “More or less, Lady Sif,” you say rather woodenly. 

“I’ve missed Asgardian music.” She steps back. “Farewell to you both.” 

You look up at Loki as Lady Sif strides out of the nearest exterior door. “There’s really not much that can be said after that.” 

Loki lets out a laugh, and bends to whisper, “Imagine being the priest.” He turns toward Father Magnussen's door and knocks on it. 

“Come in,” Father Magnussen says. You and Loki enter his wooden-paneled room. The priest is half-sitting in bed, his face black and blue, knitting a red and white intarsia sock. “Good morning! Prince Loki, I’m glad to see the rumors are true that you’ve been resurrected.” He looks at you and smiles. “And Lif has told me about you.” 

You smile back at him. “And she has told me about you. I am glad you’re mending.” 

Loki clears his throat. “As am I. We’re investigating your parishioners’ murders, as you know, and your kidnapping. Could you recount the latter?”

“Of course.” The priest knits faster. “Please be seated.” You and Loki sit on the bench that is against the wall a few feet away from his bed. “It was the day I clean the church. I was dusting under a pew,” he says. “Singing. I became unconscious. When I woke up I was on a wooden floor with a stone wall next to me; my hands were tied to something and I was blindfolded. A man and a woman were talking about a drug; the man said that he had put it in my water bottle when I started cleaning the church, and the woman asked him if he had doubled the dose. I prayed and then I told them that I had always responded too heavily to anesthetics—” the corner of Loki’s mouth twitches “—and I asked them why they had kidnapped me.” 

Loki raises his hand. “Did you recognize their voices?” 

Father Magnussen shakes his head. “I’m bad at recognizing voices. The man sounded middle-aged and the woman sounded old; I think they were both Asgardians.” 

Loki nods. “Why had they kidnapped you?” He coughs into his elbow. 

Father Magnussen drops a stitch. “They wanted me to do necromancy,” he says soberly. 

Your eyes widen.  _ What _ ?? “Why?” you ask. “And to resurrect whom?”

“I don’t know.” He fixes the dropped stitch. “The woman said that they would let me live if I replaced a living Asgardian’s spirit with a dead Asgardian’s spirit. I told them that I don’t know how to do that, even if I wanted to; she said that if I know how to put a God in bread and wine, I can devise how to put a soul in a body.They beat me, and the man said they would keep beating me until I agreed to put the soul into the body. They gagged me and left. I prayed for help; and I chewed through the gag and shouted for help. The Lady Sif was riding past and heard me.” He stops to catch his breath and looks at Loki. “I realized when she took off the blindfold that I was in your brother’s house.” 

_ Necromancy—dead Asgardian—brother’s house...did Brunnhilde tell Loki of Thor’s melancholy?...dead Asgardian—Oh no.  _

Loki stands up. “We must go to the Hall.” 

* * *

On the wall of the corridor that leads to Hrist’s cell are enormous runes written in blood: HAIL ODIN. 

“Turn around!” Loki cries. You do. You are side by side, he facing toward Hrist’s cell, you facing the other end of the corridor. “Do not look toward her cell.”

“Why?” you breathe. The smell of blood is filling the corridor. 

“She has escaped and decapitated the Einherji who was guarding her,” Loki states. You hear him walk farther away, and then walk back. Loki takes your hand. “Her cell is still locked.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Referenced: 
> 
> https://marvelcinematicuniverse.fandom.com/wiki/Royal_Palace_of_Valaskjalf#cite_note-1
> 
> https://www.cinemablend.com/news/1714409/what-happened-to-sif-after-thor-the-dark-world-according-to-kevin-feige
> 
> https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3501632/quotes/qt3671521


	15. Chapter 15

A prince, a valkyrie, a lawyer, a shieldmaiden, and a bard sit around an oaken table in the Hall and deliberate on how a realm should react when a geratric, zealot valkyrie has escaped from prison and vanished--apparently astride Brunnehilde’s winged horse. 

“She wants to bring someone back from the dead,” you say. “It...must be Odin; he is her god, and if she thinks she can resurrect someone, then she would plot to resurrect him.” You glance at Loki, whom you are sitting beside; he is looking down, lines across his forehead, mulling. 

Brunnehild nods “Agreed.” She aggressively tightens the binding on the end of her braid. “Do you know whose body she wants to put his soul into? Did she try to put it in Thyra and then Kåre?” 

“Thyra and Kåre were sacrifices, lives traded for a ‘greater’ life,” Loki answers, raising his eyes to Brunnhilde’s face. “I have studied such magic.” 

Salvador, who has just returned to New Asgard, almost chokes on the water he is drinking. Brunnehilde looks blasé. Sif’s right hand clenches into a fist. 

If Loki were a necromancer, the Queen Frigga would no longer be dead, so you are not worried that he is one. You are, however, quite worried that Hrist is. “Will it work?” you ask, your tone gentle, rubbing your cold hands together on your lap. 

Loki hesitates. “Not with only two victims. Nine, at the very least; it violates the laws of every realm to put a dead soul in another soul’s flesh, and so there must be a sacrifice for every realm. Or so a tome from Bor’s reign declared.” 

“So she will try to kill seven more people…” you manage to say. 

Brunnhilde curses and stands up as Loki clarifies, “Seven more Asgardians, to be precise. Those sacrificed must be of the same realm as the one who will be resurrected.“

“Can you find people?” Brunnhilde asks him sharply. “Can you find her?”

Loki shakes his head. “Before Wednesday? No.” 

“She and Ulf hid Father Magnussen in Thor’s house,” you think aloud. “She may have written down for Ulf or for other followers who else she plans to kill or to have killed, and the list might be in that house.” You stand up, slightly stiffly. “I should go there.” 

Brunnhilde nods and looks at Lady Sif. “Go with her, Lady Sif; she’s not a warrior.” Surprised, you blink; you would have expected Loki to go with you. Brunnhilde keeps speaking. “Loki. When I dwelt in Asgard it had a shield of golden magic. Can you make one for New Asgard?”

Loki tilts his head and is silent for a long moment. He suppresses a cough and then declares, “Yes. By Tuesday night.” He rises, pulling his shoulders back. “I’ll commence work on it.” 

“I’ll round up the eyepatch wearers,” Brunnhilde decides. “And warn the people to travel in groups.” 

“And I’ll take the bard to the Lord Thor’s home,” Sif says. 

Salvador clears his throat. “Before you all go, my friend told me two rumors that you all should know. The first isn’t very significant. A video game company is planning to sue New Asgard for trademark infringement; in 2014 they made a video game set in a fictional place named New Asgard. I think we’ll win the case. The other rumor is worse: the new political party, the Concord Party, has added to its platform that New Asgard needs to follow all of Norway’s laws and cannot make its own laws.” 

  
  


Sif’s eyes narrow. “They would subjugate us.” 

“That’s a succinct way to put it,” Salvador confirms. He rubs his chin. “So I’m going to stay; I’m going to take Lif and Inge Maria to visit my parents, and then I’m going to leave them there and come back.”

Loki folds his arms. “You cannot be a sacrifice, Midgardian, but Hrist may kill you regardless.”

“New Asgard will need a lawyer,” Salvador states. He stands up, looking at Brunnhilde. “We can probably win a case about New Asgard’s right to have its own laws, if it  _ has  _ them. Rumors are spreading that Loki is here and that he is free, and the Concord Party is using them to argue that New Asgard is lawless.“

“Should we arrest him?” Sif asks promptly. 

You give her a vexed look and move closer to Loki, who puts his hand on your arm. His pulse is calm. “I could disguise myself,” he suggests, looking at Brunnhilde. 

She shakes her head and asks Salvador, “What should we do?” 

“Either arrest him or pardon him.” Salvador glances at you with a slight smile. “I’d vote for pardoning him.” 

Brunnhilde thinks for a moments and then nods. “I now formally pardon him. You are all witnesses.” She strides towards the door. 

Loki half turns to look at her, brows high. “From what unrighteousness are you exonerating me? Masquerading as Odin, trying to kill the Lady Sif and the Lord Volstagg, raising myself from the dead…. Brevity is not a substitute for precision, Brunnhilde Allmother.” 

“Perhaps someone who needs precision in their pardon should not receive one,” Sif comments, walking away from the table toward the other doorway.

Brunnhilde makes an impatient gesture. “It’s a blanket pardon to help us in a Midgardian court. It doesn’t need details and it doesn’t need obstruction.” She scans the room. “Will everyone here bear witness to it?” 

Everyone except Loki says aye or yes or nods, and then Brunnhilde and Sif vanish out of the doorways.

“If only my redemption had become a matter of legal expediency sooner,” Loki spits out. He presses his lips together, his fingers tightening around your wrist, though not tight enough to hurt. 

“Redemption isn’t a legal matter,” Salvador notes. He pulls his phone out of his pocket and smiles a little at both of you. “I’d better tell my parents we’re coming early.” Both courage and anxiety in his expression, he leaves the room. 

You and Loki stand side by side next to the empty table. His hand slides from your wrist to your palm, his fingers curving around yours.

“If anything is troubling you, I’ll listen to you, if you wish to tell me of it,” you say, too softly for anyone but Loki to hear. 

“You should go; the Lady Sif isn’t exactly patient,” Loki says, just as quietly. “Be wary, sweet.”

“Of her or of Hrist?” you ask under your breath. You do not know Sif. 

The corner of Loki’s mouth twitches. “Only Hrist.” He kisses your hand and lets go of it. “I’ll be in my chamber devising a shield.” 

* * *

Thor’s wooden house—as small and rickety as he is mighty and strong—is so close to the sea that all the air around it smells like salt and gusts bitterly. It is no more than two minutes’ walk away when Sif, who has been silent since you caught up with her, clears her throat. “Are you his lover?” Her tone is blunt but not rude.

Your cheeks warm. “We—I am his betrothed,” you state, blinking as the wind blows into your eyes. “Why do you ask?” 

Sif’s dark hair streams behind her, and she frowns a little as she steps over a lobster trap. “Do you possess a phone? Would someone lend you one?”

You look at her, baffled. “I could borrow one.” 

She turns around, pulling a card out of the pocket of her black jacket. “This is my number.” Into your hand she places it: it is white with red numerals on it. “Call me if you need aid.” 

You scrutinize the card; the wind is almost blowing it out of your hand. “I am grateful, Lady Sif, but why do you expect I will need help after Hrist is caught? She is my only enemy, and the Titan is dead.” 

Sif’s expression softens as she looks at you. “You are wedding a serpent,” she says. “And I doubt you know how to cut off a venomous head.” 

Your heart thumps in your chest. Your fingers bend Sif’s card unevenly in half as they clench around it. What in the nine realms makes her think she can blithely offer to decapitate your betrothed?!

You press your lips together. You need to be in concord with Sif while searching Thor’s house for clues...and you can see that she thinks she is offering you safety. You push the card into your pocket. “I’m not wedding a serpent,” you say very clearly. “And I do not want to be a widow. Let’s search this house.” 

Sif looks at you with pity and then strides ahead.

What in the eight realms does she think he’s going to do to you that would make you want him dead?! Strike you? He put himself between you and an explosion. Take advantage of you? He hasn’t even kissed you, though you are betrothed to him and would very much like to be kissed.

...It’s odd that he hasn’t kissed you. Does he not want to? Does he think that you’re wedding him in name only? Or...  _ “I prefer to earn what I gain….”  _

You almost trip on a stone, and realize that Sif is pushing open the house’s wooden door. Your skirt billowing in the bitter wind, you follow her into—havoc. 

The entryway of Thor’s house looks like a Midgardian shop and looks like a rubbish heap. Boxes are rammed into shelves, furniture is stacked on top of furniture, weapons and raiment and blankets and a wooden chair hang on the walls, empty cups and bottles and cans and dried dirty plates stand on chairs and lie on the floor. 

“Why does it look like this?!” you wonder aloud as you follow Sif into the central room. 

Sif looks at you as if you had said something idiotic. “I haven’t been here, and you have. I was hoping you could tell me. Is Thor well?” Her voice trembles slightly. 

You look up and see desiccated onions hanging from the handle of an axe that has been thrown into the wall, too high for you to reach (even if you wanted to). “I have never been in here before,” you say carefully. “I knew the Lord Thor was an unusual sight in the village, and I knew it was gossipped that he was drinking abundantly, but that is all I know.” 

Sif touches the sleeve of a large jacket that hangs from a hook on the wall, and then clenches her teeth and hurries toward the back of the room, where she pulls open a creaky door. “The priest was bound in here.”

“Here” is a cold, small, stone-walled bedchamber with a long, unmade bed on its left side and clothing and bottles and cans and handkerchiefs on its wooden floor. Sif glances down at a pair of short plaid pants and flushes embarrassedly. “He was tied to the bed’s frame.” 

“Let’s search for anything that would not have belonged to Lord Thor, or to Korg or Miek,” you say. 

“Who?”

“Friends of his.” You kneel on the frigid floor to look under the bed; it has dust and bottles under it. “Sakaarians.” 

“...What are those? Sakaarians.”

You sneeze and turn to look under the dresser, trying not to kneel on mouse droppings. You wonder how many mouse droppings you have stepped on. “Loki knows more about Sakaar than I do. You could ask him, or you could talk to Oni or Krsasd; they’re Sakaarians and they own the carpentry shop”—there is nothing under the dresser, so you rise— “behind the House of Healing.” 

Sif blinks. “I...may.” She picks up a white, lengthy hair from the floor. “Is Korg or Miek elderly?”

“I know not, but neither of them has hair!” you answer. “That must be Hrist’s.” 

Sif nods and puts the hair in her pocket. 

You begin looking through the dresser drawers, starting at the lowest one, in case Hrist hid something in one of them. Sif searches the nightstand. 

In the highest drawer is a black book with lines on its pages and runes written with a pen on its cardboard cover: “The Deaths of Lord Heimdall and Prince Loki: For the Public Library of New Asgard.” You open it.

> _ I, Thor Odinson, Prince of Asgard, write this account of the deaths of the Lord Heimdall and my brother. I was an eyewitness. I will tell of their passing. Read, Asgardian.  _

You close the book and your eyes. Can you read this? Should you? It’s meant for everyone in Asgard...but would Loki want you to read it? Can you read it without weeping? You glance at Sif; she is looking under the pillow of the bed, one tear on her cheek. 

You slide the book under your arm and close the drawer, and open a trunk that is at the foot of the bed. It is full of bottles. 

* * *

You read it, in an alcove of the hall after Sif bade you farewell, and it takes almost a quarter of an hour before you feel steady enough to walk and calm enough to talk. 

When you open Loki’s chamber’s door, your hands are shaking from cold and from horrified grief. Your mind keeps rereading the untidy runes on the book’s pages: 

> ... _ the Titan was incinerating my brains...my brother lifted up the Stone _ ... _ Thanos stabbed Heimdall in the heart, twice…. Loki knew Thanos would not slay me if he had first slain him...he raised him up with one arm...strangled him…”You will never be a god”...broke his neck...his eyes shed blood...he will live forever in Valhalla…. _

Sitting on the edge of his bed (which is covered in papers), holding a pen, Loki raises an eyebrow as you enter. “Did you find anything, my dear?” As he looks up at you, his brows draw together. “Something that bodes ill?” he guesses, softly. 

You shake your head. “Lady Sif found one of Hrist’s hairs,” you reply as you close the door behind you, “but we found nothing else that was hers or Ulf’s.”

“Hardly surprising.” Loki tilts his head. “What are you carrying?” He suppresses a cough. 

You pull the book out from under your arm. “I found this in a drawer. Your brother wrote it; it is for all of Asgard and it is an account of—of Heimdall’s death and of your death.” Your voice wavers; Loki looks nonplussed. “I thought you might want to...know about it.” You offer it to him.

He takes it and looks at the cover, opens his mouth and closes it again. “Evidently he aspired to be a historian.” 

Doubt twists in your stomach. Should you have put it back in the drawer? “If I had died, I would want to know how it was written down,” you say, quietly and honestly. “I’ll put it back if you don’t want to read it.” 

Loki shakes his head, bemused eyes on the book’s title. “It’s clearly meant for the library.  _ Is _ there a library?”

“Not yet.” You are planning to fund its building, if your next album prospers. 

Loki sets the book on his bed, beside a sketched map of New Asgard. “You’ve read it,” he says, eyes on its cover. 

“Yes.” 

He studies your face. “Surely you’ve sung of more grisly deaths.” he says, too calmly, and smiles a little. 

You swallow hard. “Yes, but not...not happening to someone...to  _ you _ .” 

Loki shakes his head. “it would have taken longer to read than it took to occur.” He picks up the map and offers it to you. “I’ve chosen twenty-seven places to cast spells, in a ring around New Asgard.” He points at inked dots. “The spells will take a few days to devise and cast.” 

You take the map and look down at it through your unshed tears. “Are there many of them?”

Loki picks up enough papers to make room for you to sit next to him. “Yes: it must obstruct her and no others, it must stun rather than slay Brunnhilde’s horse, it must—“

Before you can seat yourself, a tear plummets from your eye onto the map, making a fictitious lake east of the hall. You try to dab it dry with your sleeve.

Loki stands up and touches your arms, just below your shoulders. “It was a rather detailed account, wasn’t it?” he surmises, giving you a rueful smile. “Delicacy has never been my brother’s hallmark….. Truly, sweet, it was over in a minute or two—unworthy of your distress.” 

You swallow the lump in your throat. “Please don’t speak as if you are worthless,” you say softly. 

Loki ponders that, head tilted; and then suddenly smirks. “Very well, I’ll blazon myself as a god and enjoin obeisance.” Mischief twinkles in his eyes. “I’ll construct another tremendous graven image—”

You can’t help smiling. “Good, I was fond of the first one.” You lift your hand and smooth his hair back from his temple. “I could see it from my window.” 

One of his brows rises. “And didn’t procur drapes?” 

“In truth, I  _ had  _ drapes and removed them,” you admit. 

Loki blinks. “...Truly?”

“Truly.” You smile at him, unsteadily. Thor’s words are shifting toward feeling like a harrowing story you read, not like a nightmare you viewed; Loki’s hands warm your wind-chilled arms, and his neck is unbroken, and his eyes are free of blood. 

He caresses your cheek, his smirk softening. “You have doubtful taste, my dear.”

“I don’t have doubts about it. I wish….”

“What do you wish?”

Your face warms. “I wish we were already wed and that when you finished writing these spells, you’d come home.”

He looks at you like lost people look at landmarks, and bends to brush his lips against your cheek. “I couldn’t come tonight, even if we were wed. I will not sleep until I have made this shield.”

_ Of course you won’t.  _ You tilt your head up and kiss his cheek, wanting to nestle into his arms. “Can I help you with anything?” 

Loki shakes his head. “You’re not a magician.”

“But I can cook,” you counter, with a bit of a grin. “Though, if I bring you meals, I’m not sure natural means will suffice to make you stop working and eat them….”

Loki gives you an amused smile. “Do you truly think I could deny you a request?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Credits: 
> 
> https://blogs.transparent.com/icelandic/2015/02/11/how-to-romance-a-viking/
> 
> https://nikkoliferous.tumblr.com/post/636674711056793600/just-thinking-about-how-loki-almost-certainly
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgwkL2Fylh0


	16. Chapter 16

The days up to and including Tuesday pass busily and serenely. You bring Loki meals and persuade him to nap; and, after he has read Thor’s account of his and Heimdall’s deaths, you warn him that you think Thor may be somewhat unwell in mind—to which he reacts by hypothesizing, “Possibly it runs in the family.” You help Lif pack and bid her a good journey; you call on Tru and persuade her not to elope with a Midgardian rock star she met online a fortnight ago; you draft a song about Loki’s return; you let the Midgardian reporter interview you; you bring Father Magnussen soup; you try to teach Aster to come. Nobody dies. 

On Tuesday you are full of anxiety. Loki is still planning and casting spells for the shield, and Hrist wil presumably try to kill someone tomorrow. When you have returned to your cottage after bringing Loki supper, you sit on your bed and ponder Wednesdays. 

Why did Hrist begin sacrificing Asgardians two Wednesdays ago rather than one or three or nine? 

Loki said she would make at least nine sacrifices. Perhaps determining when she would make the ninth will reveal something useful. 

You search your bookshelf for the Midgardian calendar you bought because you wanted to learn about Midgardian holidays, find it, and sit back down on your bed. Aster bites the edge of the calendar, her yellow eyes round. With a pen, you mark dots on the day Thyra died, on the day Kare died, on tomorrow, and on the six Wednesdays after that. 

... _ Oh, no _ . 

The Wednesday on which Hrist will sacrifice the last of the nine Asgardians is the Wednesday before the Winter Solstice. 

The Wednesday before Thor returns to New Asgard. 

This cannot be coincidence.

Does she hope Thor will help Odin regain the throne of Asgard? No; surely she wouldn’t assume that. One simply couldn’t assume that Thor will believe Odin’s soul really is in whoever’s body she inserts it into—

...She needs a body for Odin. 

Thor’s body is strong, young, durable…. 

The calendar drops from your hand. Thor’s body would be obeyed by the people of Asgard, whether Thor’s soul or Odin’s were in it; Thor’s body can make lightning and thunder; and if Thor’s soul is dead, he cannot combat Hrist.

Aster arcs down from the bed and attacks the bent calendar, claws out. You stare down at it as she rips it, trying to convince yourself that you are being nonsensical. 

But Hrist is intelligent, it is well known that Thor will return around the time of the Winter Solstice, and it is obvious that Thor would try to punish her for killing nine Asgardians, and would try to prevent her from putting his father’s soul in someone else’s body--or would try to punish her for putting it there, if she already had. Surely if Hrist’s plans were not linked to Thor, she would have planned for her series of sacrifices to end considerably before he returned.

So her resurrection of Odin  _ must _ be meant to coincide with Thor’s return to New Asgard. She obviously does not want him to stop her. And she can’t possibly expect him to ally with her. 

But she very well might want to replace his soul. Putting Odin’s soul in Thor’s body would make Odin young and would give him more power. And both Odin-worshippers and Thor-lovers would follow Hrist’s god. 

He already is missing an eye. 

* * *

The dusk is frigid; light, winter-anticipating snowflakes, grouped in masses of crystals and emptiness, are drifting on the road and down windows. You walk as fast as you can without slipping, flakes blowing into the hood of your cloak and into your eyes. Almost nobody else is walking or riding tonight. 

You shouldn’t have set out for the Hall tonight. Tomorrow would be more dangerous than tonight, you had reasoned; Wednesday was tomorrow, the day Hrist would seek to sacrifice someone. And it is only about eight hours after noon; people usually are still out and about, at this time.

Not when snow is drifting down and a fanatic murderess is soaring somewhere through it. 

You see the silhouette of the pitched roof of the Hall, enter its warm wood-walled corridors, knock on Loki’s chamber’s door. He does not answer. You knock again, snow melting inside your hood. 

He must be outside, finishing the shield. You exit the way you came; you don’t know where he would be or how long it will be until he returns to his chamber, so you set out towards your cottage.

Night is falling, and the few footprints and hoofprints in the road’s snow make manifest that almost everyone has been indoors for the last half-hour. The wind smells like snow and salt and feels almost like rubbing both of those into cracked hands as it blusters past you, blowing off your hood. 

You pull it back around your face and walk as fast as you can without slipping, snow climbing on your boots. 

Ahead, an improbably large flake joins the others, the largest conglomerate snowflake you have ever seen. It drips down and you can still see it after it falls, a white heap--no, a white curve--no. You are a few feet away from it now, and you stop short. A white  _ feather _ , as long as your forearm. 

You look up into the snow and see something pale soaring, something sizeable, white and winged. Brunnehilde’s winged horse, doubtless with Hrist on its back. 

Your heart flies into your throat. She must be here waiting for midnight, waiting to kill another Asgardian. You clutch the edge of your hood so it cannot flap backward and permits Hrist to see you, and turn a corner to make a sharp turn back toward the palace. The snow and wind shove your back; your heart thuds; you almost slip on snow. 

Wings flap behind you; a fanatical voice, wind-muffled, cries out. You run. Your feet slides, your cloak flies out behind you, your hood blows off your hair. Another white feather gusts past you and sways down onto the slick slush. 

Somebody screams inside a house, somebody who looked out into darkness and saw a self-appointed priestess hunting a bard, and then an outspread wing chops into the back of your neck and your feet slip out from under you and your chest and face and elbows slam into the wet snow, onto the flinty road. 

Boots thud into snow behind you, beside you. You push yourself up with your hands, palms pressed against slush, but Hrist’s strong old hand grabs the back of your neck and slams your face against the road again. “Your death will serve our realm, bard. Do not be craven.”

You turn your head a little, so your nostrils are not sunk in slush, and pull in a shaky breath. “It’s still Tuesday,” you point out. “My-my death won’t serve Asgard at all if you cause it before the Allfather’s day begins.” 

A sharp point pricks your side, below your ribs--a blade pierced through your cloak and your gown. “You will serve the Allfather’s needs, whether you die in an instant or bleed to death through several hours. If you do not struggle, I will take you from here and cast you over the cliff once midnight has struck. If you resist the Allfather’s will, the will of my Lord of Frenzy, I will give you a mortal wound from which you will die tomorrow.” 

Your heart is beating so fast your whole body is shaking. You will be dead tomorrow, one way or another. Lif will mourn you, but all will be well with her; she will recover with her husband and baby. But who will remind Loki to rest and eat? He’ll think he should have taken better care of you...and who will feed Aster?

“It is odd to remember that you used to be my...landlady,” you hear yourself say. You slide a little, away from the point of her blade. “I won’t struggle.” But you will jump off the horse onto somebody’s roof or into a tree, if you have the slightest possibility of doing so. 

Hrist pulls her blade out of your garments and yanks you upright. She is wearing nothing but a white woolen gown; her hands and lips are purple, her white hair is wet with snow and loose, her uncovered eye is fervid. 

Your wet gown frigidly blows against your abdomen and thighs. “Does the Allfather want to return?” you ask as calmly and curiously as you can speak. If you can make Hrist lose track of time, somebody might see her and summon Loki or Bunnhilde or Sif, someone who can battle a Valkyrie. 

“He would not have forsaken his people, had not the God of Lies slain him,” Hrist hisses out, and puts her face too close to yours. “The misbegotten frost giant, who care too little for you to preserve you from me.” 

You turn your nose away from her raw-fish-odored breath. “It isn’t Loki’s fault that I took a walk tonight. Will sacrificing us create a body for the Allfather?” Innocently, you look at her again, as if you merely want to know if your death will be meaningful. 

Hrist scoffs. “Create a body? You know nothing of rituals. The sacrifices will enable me to substitute his soul for another man’s.”

Very, very faintly, you hear a suppressed cough. Your hand tightens on your wet skirt. “Hrist? What will happen to the other man’s soul?” you ask. 

Hrist rolls her eye. “It will go to Valhalla, I presume. To die by hanging and by spear that the Allfather may live is—AAAHHH!!” 

Into her shoulder smites a spear and she slides in the slush, hands and mouth open, and falls backward into the ditch beside the road. 

A cold, hard-boned hand grips your wrist and spins you into the alley between two houses. “Stay here,” Loki orders hurriedly and hurtles past you toward Hrist, a dagger in each hand, cloak billowing behind him. 

She flings a knife at him as she scrambles to her feet and throws herself onto Brunnhilde’s horse as Loki parries her shooting blade. Into its hips she slams her boot heels and it beats its wings. Six feet above the street, twelve, twenty, almost invisible in the snow. 

Loki did not try to catch hold of Hrist or of the horse. Rather, he let one dagger fall to the road and now gradually lifts up his empty hand, snow piling on his palm, head tilted upward. 

Golden light glows on the horizon, and then a shining net rises from the perimeter of New Asgard, taller than walls, taller than roofs, taller than trees. It curves over the village; it is a dome now, with a hole on top that is smaller every second. 

Silhouetted against the light of the golden net, Hrist and her stolen horse fly upward, streaking toward the hole and then through it. 

The hole vanishes. The golden net is all encompassing. 

Loki’s hand sinks and he turns and rushes to you, saying your name. “Did she harm you?” His face as pale as the feather falling behind him, he tips your chin up to look into your eyes. 

“No.” Your back is pressed against a house’s snow-sprinkled wall; your knees almost buckle. 

Loki presses his lips together, brusquely brushing snow off of your shoulders and arms. “Why, pray tell, were you _wandering about in a blizzard_ on the eve of a day on which you _well_ _knew_ someone would die at her hand?!” He knocks snow out of your hood. “Perhaps you envied the fate of some little mouse your cat devoured?” His voice is sharper than it has ever been to you. “Or possibly—“ His voice breaks off as he touches the blood on your side—about as much as you’d bleed from getting a bad papercut. “—She wounded you—“

You shake your head. “It’s a skin-wound, dearest. I—“ Your knees give out and you thud onto slush. “I can bandage it myself.” 

Loki cups his hands under your elbows and helps you to your feet, compunction in his face. “You’re in shock. I’ll escort you home.”

You are both silent as you walk to your house, you leaning on Loki’s arm and trembling as the cold wind gusts through your damp gown. 

Loki locks your house’s door after the two of you are inside. “You should don dry attire.” 

You nod and wearily walk up the stairs to your room. There, you put a small bandage on the cut Hrist gave you, and change into your warmest gown and slippers. Aster is curled into a circle on your pillow; she stretches and rolls over. You caress her rounded head and go downstairs again. Your hands and legs still tremble.

Loki has pulled your largest chair near your fireplace. He stands with his back toward you, looking down at your guitar where it lies on the short table in the middle of the room. Beneath it are sheets of paper on which you were pencilling lyrics; one has blow onto the floor, and Loki bends to pick it up. “I should not have berated you,” he says softly, without turning. 

“I should have found a safer way to talk to you,” you concede, crossing the room to him. You hug him from behind, wrapping your arms around his bony ribs and nestling your cheek against his cloak. “You saved my life.”

“Stating the obvious, darling?” Loki asks sardonically, but he turns in your arms so he is facing you, and cups your cheek with his palm. There is no anger or irritation or triumph or pride in his eyes. He is anxious; he is exhausted. The lines between his brows deepen as he lightly touches your forehead. “You’re getting a bruise.”

“Pavement,” you explain simply, and smile up at him. “The shield is magnificent—did you make the shield in Asgard?”

Loki guides you to the chair near the fire. “Mother cast that one. Mother and two witches.” 

“And she taught you how to make another?” you guess, curling your cold legs under yourself. 

Pushing a birch log into the fireplace, Loki shakes his head. “We never thought another would be needed.” He brushes bark off his palms. “She described its crafting, in general terms. I doubt my shield could ward off an airship, but it will stymy Hrist….” He coughs. “It encompasses all of New Asgard and all the sea Norway permits us to fish.”

“And the only Asgardian who is outside it is Lif, and she’s on the other side of Midgard.”

“Where Hrist cannot fly ere midnight. And Midgardians cannot be sacrificed to raise up an Asgardian.” Loki turns his back to the fire and folds his arms. “What did you wish to tell me?”

You twist a fold of your gown. “I counted Wednesdays, to see when Hrist would finish sacrificing people. And she will finish--she would have, if you hadn’t made the shield--the Wednesday before the Winter Solstice.” 

Loki tilts his head. “Yes.”

“Which is about when your brother will come back, as everyone in our town knows. Hrist would know. And it doesn’t make sense that she’d time her resurrection of Odin to coincide with Thor coming back, since Thor would want to capture her and would want to stop her from killing whoever she’s going to put Odin’s soul into.” You pause to breathe. “She said that person will ‘die by hanging and by spear.’”

A frown crosses Loki’s face. “She could as easily have begun her sacrifices sooner,” he ponders, and takes a step closer to you. “What do you deem her motive?” 

You look up at him and hesitantly state, “I think she may plan to put Odin’s soul into Thor’s body.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Credit to https://www.lifeinnorway.net/the-five-seasons-of-norway/ and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odin.


	17. Chapter 17

That night, you cannot sleep. You lie in your bed, pet Aster (who is curled up on your chest), and fret. Loki found your theory convincing—so convincing that you wish you had waited until morning to inform him of it, because he spent a good hour pacing back and forth across your cottage, trying to devise a way to kill Hrist, all but ignoring your suggestions that he sleep first and then try to think of one—since New Asgard is safe and the solstice is still about two months away! He did not stop walking (and coughing more the more he walked) until he realized that you were exhausted and turned his attention to persuading you to go to bed. He’s sleeping in your downstairs chamber again, you assume. You reminded him he could before you climbed up here. 

It’s good to know that he’s here; though you trust his shield, you cannot help imagining Hrist crashing through your window or battering down your door, murderous ardor in her aged eye. 

But that isn’t the real worry; it isn’t the disaster you rationally think might occur. The catastrophe you are genuinely fretting about is the same as Loki was agonizing about: Odin’s soul in Thor’s body. The more you think about this eventuality, the worse you realize it is. If Hrist’s magic will not work—Loki said that he does not know if one  _ can _ put one person’s soul into another person’s body—then Thor will die by her spear and neither he nor Odin will be in New Asgard. You fear for Loki’s sanity if Thor dies; the scarcely supported theory that if Hrist is not captured in the next two months she might attempt to kill Thor was enough to make him all but wear holes in both your floor and his palm. And if Thor dies  _ and _ Odin is in his body...Loki did not say what he thought of that possibility, but you are quite certain that that would be worse. The last thing New Asgard needs is a resurrected Allfather to try to take the throne (since Thor would be dead) and discomfit the Midgardians of Norway by acting as if New Asgard is a blessing bestowed upon them by gods rather than a refugee pocket state. You do not know how Loki would feel if his father were in his brother’s body…. 

You need to sleep. The Solstice is two months away. Surely Loki or Brunnhilde or Sif or Norwegian authorities will capture or kill Hrist before then. And New Asgard is safe from her now. All will be well, all will be well….

You restlessly shift your position and try to think about Loki instead of thinking about Hrist. You hope he’s sleeping. 

In a few days, or weeks, or months, he will be sleeping here--under your sheet and blanket, his face close enough to kiss, his hands…you hope holding you, but you are unsure. You know what wedded people and lovers do; but you do not know, at all, what those who share a bed do when not engaged in such intimacies…. You want to be in his arms, to stroke his hair, to caress his back, but you do not know yet if he will want you to. 

Aster’s claws poke through your nightgown and you flinch. He won’t want  _ that _ . 

Is he asleep? The floor isn’t creaking, so he must at least be lying down. He hasn’t slept in days.

Oh, you shouldn’t have told him about your theory tonight! Last night. It’s almost morning. Three hours after midnight? Four?

Perhaps you’ll fall asleep if you go downstairs and drink a mug of water. 

Robed and slippered, Aster gently set on the warm area where you were, you quietly open your bedroom door and—your heart tries to split in half and fly into your ears. A silhouette sitting below you, a—

Loki turns his head and looks up at you, his pale face visible in the dimness. “Is something amiss?” 

“Not truly. I couldn’t sleep.” You walk down the stairs and sit beside him. He is scratching his palm as if he had been clenching an irritating herb in it. “ _ Why _ are you sitting on the stairs instead of sleeping, dearest? Have you been here all night?”

“The answer to the second question, sweet, is ‘yes.’ The answer to the first...is too lengthy to be given on the stairs.” 

You slip your hand through his arm. “Then I’ll receive it on the couch. We might as well suffer from insomnia on something that has cushions and isn’t just nine inches wide.” 

Loki smiles slightly and helps you rise. 

“I shouldn’t have told you my theory until morning,” you say softly, apologetically, as you cross the dark cottage together. You sit on the couch, and Loki lights a beeswax candle that sits on the table, matches in a small pottery bowl beside it. He picks up the papers that are closest to it and stacks them away from the flame. 

“It was not a matter to conceal from me,” he dissents. He sits beside you, bent forward a little, and rubs his temples, staring at the candle. “I’ve been trying to contact him—send an illusion of Father to warn him.” He sighs. “Since he’s on a ship I’ve never seen, in a location entirely unknown, my endeavors haven’t prospered.”

“I trust you’ll deal with Hrist long before he returns,” you say quietly. “And even if she can’t be caught by then, surely he could protect himself from her.” 

“If he were warned.” He lowers his hands to his lap, and begins absently pulling on a loose thread of his tunic’s hem.

“Three in the morning isn’t the best time to invent a way to warn him.” 

The corner of his mouth quirks up. “Perhaps not.” 

“Why were you seeking to send an illusion of the Allfather rather than of yourself?” you query, moving closer to him. You put your hand in his, protecting the hem’s stitchery. 

He sighs as he caresses the back of your hand. “Because delivering a warning is easier if one isn’t parrying questions regarding one’s allegedly spurious death.” 

You nod, since you can’t argue with that, and move even closer, leaning against him a little. 

Loki looks as if he is thinking of saying more, but instead he reaches out and lifts you onto his lap, setting you sideways with your legs on the couch. “Turn and turn about, darling.” He folds his arms around you, smiling a little. “ I’ve revealed the root of my wakefulness; tell me of yours.” 

You nestle closer to him, laying your head on his shoulder. “But you haven’t told me why you were on the stairs,” you point out, quietly.

Loki hesitates. “...I dozed, and had an ill dream that made distance from you seem inadvisable. For either of our sakes.”

Though his back is against the couch’s back, you manage to put your arms around him—one around his shoulders, the other hand above his waist—and hug him. 

You feel him brush his cheek against your hair, and then kiss your temple, his lips gentle but cold. “Have I earned your explanation yet, sweet?” 

“Loki, dearest, I’m not someone with whom you’re trading strategic information!” you protest with a bemused smile. “I was worrying about Hrist’s plot, and then I was thinking about you.”

“What were you thinking?” He sounds like he’s smiling.

A blush warms your face. “I was wondering what it will be like to be married.” 

“We’ve settled too little,” Loki says, too soberly. “Living arrangements, fiscal matters—”

You can’t help a sudden giggle, though you try to suppress it. 

Loki leans away from you a little so you can see each other’s faces by the candlelight, a mischievous twinkle in his eyes. “Were you wondering about something less prosaic, darling?” he purrs.

You hide your heated face. “Let’s—let’s talk about living arrangements. And fiscal matters.” 

Loki laughs softly and pulls you against his chest again. “I doubt you wish to reside in my borrowed room.”

You take your hands away from your face and put your arms around him again. “I’ve no wish for a different home than this one, unless you dislike it.” 

He shakes his head, caressing your back. “Royalty living in grandeur while our people thrive is a far different matter from living this while the realm has shrunk to a town, and those who sat in the king’s council bait hooks.” Suddenly his mouth quirks. “Not that they didn’t before, metaphorically…. You intend to continue singing, I presume.”

“Of course. What will you do?” Once Hrist is dead or captured, New Asgard will not need a detective...one can hope. 

“Brunnhilde has made me an offer. ....I'll be drafting a tax code and organizing our snow-clearers, and the like.” His expression and tone are both emotionless. “I’ll be paid enough to support us both, should you ever choose to be a bard no longer.” 

“Are you pleased?” you ask quietly, looking into his eyes.

“I wouldn’t ask for more.” 

“But do you  _ want _ more?”

“There is no ‘more’ to want. Unless I strove to take the throne again, which I shall not.” He rubs at a tense muscle in your shoulder, trying to make it less like a rock than it is. “Or has the rank you desire changed?” 

Giving him a fond and rather worried smile, you shake your head. fThe candlelight makes the shadows in his face voids and flickers in his eyes; he looks ill, he looks perilous, he looks tired, he looks devoted. You tip your face up and kiss his cheek. “I desire to wed you whether you are a king or a drafter of tax codes. Or anything else.” 

His gaze goes to your lips, but then he looks over your shoulder at the candle. “So you’ve implied before, sweet.” 

Perplexity draws your brows together. “You do know I love you, Loki, don’t you?” You cup his cheek with your palm and gently nudge him to look at you again. “And I’m your betrothed.” 

Loki raises an eyebrow. “You’re wondering why I’ve never kissed you,” he observes. 

Your cheeks flame and you look down. “Yes.” 

He says nothing, though he keeps massaging your shoulder. After a few moments, you take a deep breath and look into his eyes again. “If the reason is anything important, please tell me.”

He gives you a wry smile. “It’s merely the same reason I’ve asked for your hand after our investigation is done, rather than at once.” A muscle twitches in his eyelid, and he unhands you. “When you decide you’d rather not share bed and board with one who in his sleep conjures up illusions of murdered frost giants and mad Titans, the less I have taken from you the better.” 

You lips part, but you almost cannot remember how to talk. He does  _ what _ ? He thinks you’ll... _ what _ ?? “...You’ve thought this whole time I would break our betrothal?” you whisper. 

“Given a few weeks to learn of my abominations and bear with my madness—well, yes.” He’s looking at either the candle or the guitar again. 

You clutch a handful of the back of his tunic. “Then why did you ask me to wed you? Why have you planned our life together and caressed me and—” Your voice quavers. 

“Forgetting what is real. Or probable.” Remorse enters his eyes as he turns his face to you again. “Don’t look so stricken, sweet. I neither doubt your honesty nor intend to again forsake you.” 

You close your eyes for an instant. “Maybe once we’ve been wed a few hundred years, you’ll credit it’s probable we’ll be married a few thousand more,” you hope, your voice soft, and lay your head on his shoulder again. A few heartbeats, and then he leans forward a little, closer to you, and folds his arms around you. Gently, you kiss the side of his healing throat. 

He shivers and bends his head enough that he can press a kiss to the corner of your mouth. “I’ve taken you for my lodestar,” he whispers. 

You raise your head and look into his eyes, serious and vulnerable under his asymmetrical brows. “May I kiss you?”

He blinks. “...If you wish.” 

You draw in your breath, tilt your head, and brush your lips against his. 

A soft, rueful laugh escapes Loki as you draw back. “You’ve been reading Midgardian lore, and fear I’ll change my form if truly kissed?” 

Your face is warmer than the flame on the candle. “You can’t expect me to know how to do what I’ve never done before,” you say softly.

He looks much more blindsided than he did when you asked if you could kiss him, and is silent for a long moment, his hand hovering by your cheek, the expression in his eyes that of a man who has picked up something winsome and now fears it will break if he holds it amiss, let alone drops it. 

You touch the back of his hand and nestle your cheek against it. “I did tell you I didn’t take lovers.”

“Yes, but why, without the slightest experience—”

“I’m a bard, and I sang in taverns and at wealthy festivities. I have far too  _ much _ experience of telling men, ‘No, I will not be your third wife,’ and ‘No, I will not accompany you home,’ and ‘No, I will not be your kept woman,’ and ‘No, I do not want you to kiss me even though I  _ was _ looking at the wall behind you when I sang a line in which lovers embraced’!” You have to stop to breathe. Loki looks both appalled and reassured; you smile at him. “You’re the only suitor I’ve loved, dearest, not the only one I’ve had. But you’re right that I’m without the slightest experience in kissing.” 

Very lightly, Loki touches your lips with his thumb, smile-lines appearing by his eyes. “Shall I give you more?” 

* * *

When the sun rises, you are curled up on Loki’s lap, half-asleep and completely unable to say that you have no experience kissing. His cheek is nestled against your hair, and he drowsily caresses your back. Upstairs are faint sounds of Aster zooming around your chamber; on the table, the candle is still flickering. 

Somebody’s rooster crows, and Loki lifts his head. “I’ll depart now, love.” He gently lifts you off his lap and onto the couch before standing up, pulling his shoulders back to stretch them. “If I’m seen leaving your house—” He stops short and then spins to look down at you, his eyes fervid. “That’s it.” 

“What’s...what?” you say, blinking. You sit up straight, trying to become alert. 

“Hrist could have slain any Asgardian in this town, but she entered the center of it to kill you.” He tosses hair out of his face. “She would rather sacrifice you than any other Asgardian; she must sacrifice an Asgardian today—if she sees you leaving the shield, it’s certain she’ll descend.” 

You stand up. “You want me to be bait,” you deduce. “So you, or you and Brunnhilde, can capture her.” Your heart starts beating faster, but you nod. She must be captured before she kills more Asgardians. “It’s a good—”

  
“Use you as bait?! No, sweet.” Loki splays his fingers and green light glares into your eyes as he disguises himself as—you. “ _ I’m _ the bait.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Credit to https://nikkoliferous.tumblr.com/post/636674711056793600/just-thinking-about-how-loki-almost-certainly and  
> https://icyxmischief.tumblr.com/post/642761733878988800/how-much-of-a-role-do-you-think-the-princes-had-in

**Author's Note:**

> Sources consulted:
> 
> https://en.natmus.dk/historical-knowledge/denmark/prehistoric-period-until-1050-ad/the-viking-age/the-people/names/
> 
> https://www.strangulationtraininginstitute.com/spotting-the-signs-of-strangulation-could-save-a-life-but-theyre-not-always-obvious/


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